Tw  of  pRir 


s 


BS  455  .C743  1881 
Conant,  H.  C. 

The  popular  history  of  the 
translation  of  the  holy 


THE    STANDARD    SERIES. 


THE    , 

POPULAR    HISTORY    OF    THE    TRANSLATION 

OF   THE 

HOLY    SCRIPTURES 

INTO   THE    ENGLISH    TONGUE. 
WITH  SPECIMENS  OF  THE  OLD  ENGLISH  VERSIONS. 


BY     / 

MRS.    H.    C.    CONANT, 

Author  of  Translations  of  Neander's  Practical  Commentaries. 


REVISED  EDITION, 

CONTINUING  THE   HISTORY    TO    THE    PRESENT    TIME. 

By  Rev.  THOMAS  J.  CONANT,  D.D. 


No  other  Christian  people  can  show  a  vernacular  Bible  with  such  a  history  as  ours  ;  so  consecrated 
by  high  purpose  and  noble  sacrifice,  so  baptized  in  the  tears  and  blood  of  faithful  souls,  so  linked  with 
the  inmost  life  and  history  of  the  people. — Pre/ace  to  the  Jirst  edition. 


NEW   YORK: 

I.    K.    FUNK    &    CO.,    Publishers, 
io  and  12  Dey  Street. 


EDITOR'S    PREFACE. 


The  following  history  of  the  English  Bible  was  first  published  in 
the  year  1856.  It  was  received  with  general  favor,  and  was  repub- 
lished without  change  in  1859.  It  was  popular  in  its  spirit  and  form  ; 
and  for  the  first  time  it  brought  before  the  reader,  in  moderate  com- 
pass, the  whole  subject  of  English  Bible  translation.  Its  materials 
were  drawn  from  all  that  had  been  written  directly  on  the  subject, 
and  from  every  other  source  from  which  light  could  be  obtained.  A 
list  of  the  authorities  consulted,  in  the  preparation  of  the  work,  is 
added  at  the  end  of  the  author's  preface. 

In  preparing  this  revised  edition,  the  history  has  been  compared 
throughout  with  works  bearing  on  the  subject  that  have  appeared  since 
its  first  publication  ;  and  such  changes  have  been  made  as  were  found 
necessary  to  Conform  it  to  the  present  state  of  knowledge.  The  edi- 
tor is  specially  indebted  to  the  new  and  accurate  researches  of  Mr. 
Westcott,  in  his  History  of  the  English  Bible,  and  to  Dr.  Philip 
Schaff's  Introduction  to  the  American  reprint  of  the  Treatises  of 
Trench,  Lightfoot,  and  Ellicott,  and  to  the  Revision  of  the  English 
version  of  the  New  Testament. 

A  closing  chapter  is  added  by  the  editor,  bringing  the  history  down 
to  the  present  time  ;  showing  the  steps  by  which  the  way  has  been 
gradually  prepared  for  renewing  the  work  of  revision,  under  circum- 
stances more  favorable,  and  with  materials  far  more  ample,  than  at 
any  former  period  in  English  history. 

While  these  lines  are  going  to  the  press,  the  Anglo-American  revi- 
sion of  the  English  New  Testament  is  made  public,  and  received  here 
with  general  interest,  and  with  a  sale  of  the  book  unprecedented 
in  the  publication  of  any  other  work,  so  far  as  is  known  to  the  writer. 
That  such  is  the  case  augurs  well  for  the  interest  felt  in  the  Divine 
Word,  and  in  all  that  may  contribute  to  the  purity  of  its  text,  and 
render  its  teachings  more  clear  and  intelligible.  T.  J.  C. 


AUTHOR'S   PREFACE. 


This  volume  was  undertaken  from  the  wish  to  meet  a  widely 
extended  and  increasing  desire  for  information,  in  a  popular  form  and 
within  moderate  limits,  respecting  the  history  of  our  English  Bible. 
How  came  we  by  this  Bible  ?  What  were  its  antecedents  ?  In  what 
religious,  social,  political  condition  of  England  had  it  its  birth  ? 
What  influences  determined  its  primitive  character  and  form  ?  To 
what  modifying  agencies  has  it  been  subjected  in  the  progress  of  its 
history  ?  These  and  similar  questions  are  now,  in  the  present  awak- 
ened state  of  public  interest  on  the  subject  of  Bible  translation,  asked 
by  multitudes  of  intelligent  and  thoughtful  persons,  who  have  neither 
the  time  nor  the  means  for  searching  out  the  answers  for  themselves. 
The  valuable  works  on  the  subject,  already  before  the  public,  are  not 
adapted  to  the  wants  of  general  readers,  being  chiefly  useful  as  works 
of  reference  for  bibliographical  students.  That  of  Anderson  (Annals 
of  the  English  Bible),  though  rich  in  valuable  and  interesting  infor- 
mation for  certain  portions  of  the  history,  is  deficient  in  others  ; 
and  it  is,  moreover,  too  voluminous,  as  well  as  too  unmethodical,  to 
attract  such  as  do  not  enjoy  a  superfluity  of  leisure  and  of  patience.  It 
has  been  my  object  in  this  volume  simply  to  furnish  such  an  account 
of  the  early  English  versions  and  revisions  as  may  give  a  clear  idea  of 
their  origin  and  leading  characteristics,  and  of  the  general  influence  of 
each  in  moulding  the  religious  history  of  the  English  race.  This 
design  admitted  of  greater  conciseness,  without  abridging  those  his- 
torical and  personal  details  which  best  exhibit  the  subject  in  its  con- 
nection with  actual  human  life.* 

Brief  as  the  work  is,  however,  the  labor  bestowed  on  its  preparation 
has  not  been  trifling.  Indeed  its  very  brevity  is  the  result  of  no  little 
labor.  The  length  of  time  embraced  in  the  history,  and  the  variety 
of  subjects  and  of  characters  necessarily  introduced  for  its  illustra- 
tion, required  not  only  much  diligent  investigation  for  the  collection 
of  materials,  but  much  labor  in  sifting  them,  in  order  to  keep  the 
work  within  limits  suited  to  common  readers.     But  the  task,  though 

*  From  these  remarks  it  will  be  seen  that  a  critical  description  of  editions  and 
copies  does  not  come  within  the  design  of  this  volume. 


AUTHOR  S   PREFACE.  V 

toilsome,  has  been  full  of  pleasantness  ;  and  I  shall  count  myself 
happy  if  it  shall  become  the  means  of  communicating  to  other  minds 
a  more  lively  and  more  intelligent  interest  in  the  subject  of  which  it 
treats.  No  other  Christian  people  can  show  a  vernacular  Bible  with 
such  a  history  as  ours  ;  so  consecrated  by  high  purpose  and  noble 
sacrifice,  so  baptized  in  the  tears  and  blood  of  faithful  souls,  so 
linked  with  the  inmost  life  and  history  of  the  people.  At  what  cost 
the  Divine  Word  has  been  placed  in  the  possession  of  the  English 
race,  and  what  it  has  done  for  that  race,  are  matters  which  every 
Christian  and  every  lover  of  his  country  has  an  interest  in  knowing. 
Without  such  knowledge,  we  can  neither  rightly  estimate  its  value 
nor  labor  intelligently  for  the  perpetuation  of  its  influence. 

The  principal  works  consulted  in  the  preparation  of  this  volume  are 
the  following  : 

Life  and  Opinions  of  John  de  Wycliffe  ;  by  Robert  Vaughan,  D.D.  2 
vols.  8vo.     London,  1828. 

John  de  Wycliffe,  a  Monograph  ;  by  Robert  Vaughan,  D.D.     1S53. 

The  first  of  these  works  is  not  superseded  by  the  second,  which  omits  many  interesting  details  of 
the  earlier  memoir.  To  the  two  I  am  chiefly  indebted  for  the  facts  of  Wickliffe's  history,  and  for 
the  extracts  from  his  writings. 

The  History  of  the  Life  and  Sufferings  of  the  Reverend  and  Learned 
John  Wicliffe,  D.D.     By  John  Lewis.     London,  1720. 

Preface  to  Wicliffe's  Bible;  edited  by  Forshall  &  Madden,  Oxford,  1850. 

Henry's  History  of  Great  Britain  ;  4th  ed.     London,  1805. 

Of  this  writer  the  Halle  Encyclopsedia  (Ersch  u.  Gruber's)  says  :  "  The  affairs  of  the  church, 
the  inner  history  of  the  people,  government,  manners,  commerce,  the  arts  and  sciences,  engaged  his 
attention  to  a  greater  degree  than  they  did  that  of  Hume  ;  and  all  these  he  combines  in  a  series  of 
graphic  and  instructive  delineations,  the  result  of  his  own  careful  and  impartial  researches."  For  the 
character  of  the  Romish  priesthood,  and  the  condition  of  England  under  their  sway,  this  author 
has  been  chiefly  relied  on  in  the  present  work. 

Henr.  Knyghton,  Chronica  Anglic,  (in  Twysden's  Scriptores  decern, 
Vol.  II.). 

Hallam's  Middle  Ages. 

Annals  of  the  English  Bible  ;  by  Christopher  Anderson.  8vo.  London, 
1845.     2  vols. 

The  materials  for  the  personal  history  of  Tyndale  have  been  chiefly  furnished  by  this  work. 

Memoir  of  William  Tyndale,  by  George  Offor  (prefixed  to  Bagster's  reprint 
of  Tyndale's  New  Testament,  London,  1836). 

Introduction  to  Bagster's  Hexaplar  New  Testament. 

Writings  of  Tyndale  and  Frith.  (Works  of  the  Eng.  Reformers,  ed. 
by  Thomas  Russel,  London,  1831.) 

Rudhart's  Thomas  Morus,  aus  den  Quellen  bearbeitet  ;  2te  Ausg.  Augs- 
burg, 1852. 

Foxe's  Acts  and  Monuments  ;  folio,  London,  1641. 


vi  author's  preface. 

Burnet's  History  of  the  Reformation  ;  2  vols.,  4to,  London,  1850. 

The  Works  of  Sir  Thomas  More,  Knyghte,  sometime  Lorde  Chancellour 
of  England,  wrytten  by  him  in  the  Englysh  tonge  ;  4to,  pp.  1458.  London, 
1557- 

The  only  edition  of  his  English  writings.  It  was  published  by  Rastell  in  the  last  year  of  Queen 
Mary's  reign  ;  and  was  dedicated  to  her  majesty,  as  an  important  aid  to  her  efforts  for  the  re-estab- 
lishment of  Romanism. 

Archbishop  Parker,  De  Antiquit.  Brit.  Ecclesi^e  ;  London,  1729. 

Memorials  of  Miles  Coverdale  ;  London,  Samuel  Bagster,  1838. 

Memoir  of  Miles  Coverdale  ;  prefixed  to  Bagster's  reprint  of  Coverdale's 
translation  of  the  Bible. 

Lewis'  History  of  the  Translations  of  the  Holy  Bible  into  English  ; 
London,  181S. 

Preface  to  the  Genevan  New  Testament,  1557;  Bagster's  fac-simile  re- 
print, London. 

Preface  to  the  Genevan  Bible,  and  Dedication  to  Queen  Elizabeth, 
1560  (from  the  Edition  of  1583). 

Strype's  Memorials  of  Archbishop  Cranmer  ;  2  vols.,  8vo.    Oxford,  1840. 

Strype's  Life  and  Acts  of  Archbishop  Parker,  i  vol.  fol.     London,  1740. 

Strype's  History  of  the  Life  and  Acts  of  Archbishop  Grindal  ;  1  vol. 
fol.     London,  1710. 

Strype's  Life  and  Acts  of  Archbishop  Whitgift  ;  1  vol.  fol.  London, 
1718. 

These  Memoirs  of  the  English  Protestant  Primates  in  the  sixteenth  century  were  written  by  their 
ardent  admirer  and  apologist,  himself  a  zealous  High-Churchman.  From  his  representations  of  the 
growth  of  Puritanism  in  the  English  Church,  and  the  measures  used  for  its  suppression,  has  been 
drawn  the  account  given  of  them  in  this  volume. 

Fuller's  Church  History  ;  3  vols.  8vo.     London,  1842. 

Strype's  Annals  of  the  Reformation  ;  Oxford,  1824. 

Archbishop  Parker's  Preface  to  the  Bishops'  Bible. 

Hefele,  Der  Cardinal  Ximenes  ;  Tubingen,  1851. 

Bishop  Barlow's  Account  of  the  Hampton  Court  Conference  ;  London, 
1604. 
Wilkins,  Concilia  Magn^e  Brit,  et  Hib.     London,  1737. 

Gell's  Essay  towards  the  Amendment  of  the  last  English  Translation 
of  the  Bible  ;  1  vol.  fol.  1659. 

Fui.ke's  Defence  of  the  English   Bible  (ed.  for  the   Parker  Society,  Cam- 
bridge,  1843). 
Whitelocke's  Memorials  of  the  English  Affairs  ;  London,  1732. 
Journals  ok  the   House  of  Commons,   published   by  order  of  the   House. 
Tischendorf's  Reise  in  den  Orient  ;  Leipzig,  1846. 

Translators'  Preface  to  Kin<;  James'  Revision  (Field's  Edition,  2  vols.  fol. 
Loudon,  1659),  and  Dedication  to  the  King. 


TABLE    OF    CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I. 
The  Bible  the  People's  Charter.    Relation  of  Wickliffe  to  his  Age 1-4 

CHAPTER  II. 

The  Papal  Army  in  England.  The  Secular  Clergy.  The  Monks.  The  Mendicant 
Friars .* 5-I8 

CHAPTER  III. 

Counter-Influences;  their  Inefficiency.  Edward  III.  The  Barons.  Magna 
Charta.     The  Universities.     House  of  Commons 19  24 

CHAPTER  IV. 

The  Bible-Apostle.  Opposes  the  Mendicant  Friars,  on  the  Ground  of  Scripture. 
Summoned  to  Parliament.  Argues  against  the  Papal  Claim  to  Tribute.  Advocates  the 
Exclusion  of  Churchmen  from  Civil  Office.  Becomes  Theological  Professor  at  Oxford. 
His  Teachings  Anticipate  those  of  the  Reformation 25~32 

CHAPTER  V. 

The  Pope  and  Bishops  in  the  Field.  Wickliffe  sent  as  Ambassador  to  the  Papal 
Court.  Cited  before  the  Convocation  as  a  Heretic.  Scene  at  St.  Paul's.  Five  Papal 
Bulls  for  his  Apprehension.  His  Advice  to  Parliament.  Trial  at  Lambeth.  Vindicates 
the  Civil  and  the  Ecclesiastical  Rights  of  the  Laity.    Rescued  by  the  Londoners..   33-38 

CHAPTER  VI. 

The  New-Testament  Ministry  Revived.  Wickliffe's  Views  of  the  Clerical  Office. 
Labors  of  his  "  Poore  Priestes."  Alarm  of  the  Romish  Clergy.  Fraudulent  Legis- 
lation.    True  Apostolic  Succession 39-43 

CHAPTER  VII. 

Wickliffe  Attacks  the  Citadel  of  Papal  Influence.  The  Catholic  Theory 
of  Communion.  Wickliffe's  Protestant  stand-point.  Silenced  at  Oxford.  Retires  to 
Lutterworth 44-48 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

Wickliffe's  Writings  for  the  People.  Originates  Religious  Tracts.  Influence 
of  his  Popular  Writings  49-51 

CHAPTER  IX. 

The  First  English  Bible.  Wickliffe's  previous  Labors  in  Bible-translation.  Right 
of  the  Laity  to  the  Scriptures.  His  Version  made  fiom  the  Vulgate.  Wickliffe's 
Death 52-55 


Vlll  TABLE   OF   CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  X. 

INFLUENCE   of  Wickliffe's  Version.      England's  only    Bible  for  a  hundred  and 
thirty  years.     Its  Wide  Diffusion.     Rapid  Growth  of  the  Spirit  of  Religious  Freedom. 
.  Checked  by  Henry  IV.     The  Lollards.      Statutes  against  Wickliffe's  Bible.     Its  Char- 
acter and  Claims 56-61 

CHAPTER  XI. 

Wickliffe's  Influence  Abroad.  Effect  of  his  Writings  in  Bohemia.  Huss,  and 
Jerome  of  Prague.  Council  of  Constance.  Sentence  against  Wickliffe's  Writings. 
His  Body  condemned  to  be  Disinterred  and  Burned.  Execution  of  the  Decree.  In- 
creased Spread  of  his  Views  in  Bohemia.  Bohemian  Bibles.  Influence  of  Bohemia  on 
the  Reformation.     Wickliffe's  Relation  to  Modern  Christianity 62-65 

CHAPTER  XII. 
Religious  Aspects  of  England.     Wickliffe's  Bible,  and  the  Lollards.     Revival  of 
Learning  in  the  Schools.     Spread  of  the  Reformation  in  England 66-71 

CHAPTER  XIII. 
Tyndale's  New  Testament.  Tyndale's  early  History.  His  Youthful  Attempts  at 
Bible-translation.  Seeks  the  Patronage  of  Tunstal,  Bishop  of  London.  Finds  that  the 
Bible  cannot  be  Translated  in  England.  Humphrey  Monmouth  his  Friend  and  Patron. 
Translates  his  New  Testament  in  Hamburg.  Goes  to  Cologne  to  Print  it.  Aided  by 
English  Merchants.  The  Bible  Hater.  Councillor  Rincke.  Tyndale  Obliged 
to  Flee  from  Cologne  to  Worms.  Change  of  Plans.  The  New  Testament  in  England. 
The  Secret  Search.  Fyshe's  "Supplication  of  Beggars."  Thomas  Garrett. 
Scenes  at  Oxford  and  Cambridge.  Dr.  Barnes'  Trial.  Burning  of  New  Testaments. 
The  King  Enlisted.  Luther's  Blunder.  Royal  Prohibition  of  Tyndale's  Trans- 
lation. Efforts  for  its  Suppression  on  the  Continent.  The  Bishops  on  the  Alert. 
Archbishop  Warham  buys  up  New  Testaments.  Wolsey  as  Vicar-General.  Trial  of  Ar- 
thur and  Bilney.     Constant  Multiplication  and  Spread  of  the  New  Testament.'. .  72-89 

CHAPTER  XIV. 
Tyndale's  Reformatory  Writings.  "  Parable  of  the  Wicked  Mammon."  "The 
Obedience  of  a  Christian  Man."  Light  Thrown  by  these  Writings  on  the  State  of  the 
Times,  and  the  Extortions  of  the  Clergy.  Tyndale's  View  of  Church-offices  and  Sac- 
raments. Defends  the  Right  of  the  Laity  to  the  Bible.  Theological  Training  in  the 
Universities.     The  Bible  the  only  Safe  Guide 90-101 

CHAPTER  XV. 
Cardinal  Wolsey's  Measures  to  Silence  Tyndale.     Application  to  the  Prin- 
cess-Regent of  Brabant  for  his  Arrest.      Imprisonment  of  his  Friend  Harman.     The 
British  Merchant  takes  Reprisals.     Councillor  Rincke  Overreached.     Tyndale  Safe  in 
Marburg 102-106 

CHAPTER  XVI. 
THE    New    Antagonist.     Character  of  Sir    Thomas    More.     His    Early  Connection 
with   Erasmus  and  the  Cause  of  Church-Reform.     Spirit  and  Sentiments  of  his  Uto- 
pia     107-m 

CHAPTER  XVII. 
The   Reformer  Transformed.     Alarmed  for  the  Ancient  Faith.     Distrusts  the  Ref- 
ormation as  Revolutionary.     More  s  Inward  Religious  History.     Characteristics  of  his 
Controversial  Writings  for  the  People.     His  Fundamental  Principle — the  Infallibility  of 
the  Church.    The  Church  the  Authoritative  Interpreter  of  Scripture 113-121 


TABLE    OF    CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 


Shall  the  People  have  the  Bible  ?  More  Concedes  the  Principle  of  Vernacular 
Translation.  Advises  Postponement  to  a  more  Favorable  Period.  Grounds  of  his  Op- 
position to  Tyndale's  Translation.  Contrast  with  Tyndale's  Views.  Persecuting 
Spirit  of  the  Anti-Bible  Principle.     Tyndale's  Challenge  Unanswered 122-134 

CHAPTER  XIX. 

Sir  Thomas  More  as  Lord  Chancellor.  The  Civil  Power  now  takes  the  Lead  in 
Persecution.  Royal  Manifesto  against  Heretics.  Grand  movement  against  Heretical 
Books.  The  Scripture  in  the  Vernacular  declared  Injurious.  Royal  Proclamation 
against  Tyndale's  Writings.  Tunstal's  Bible-burning.  How  he  Obtained  the  Bibles. 
More  Avows  himself  a  Persecutor.  Defends  the  oath  ex-ojficio.  His  Opinion  of  Juries. 
Advocates  the  Violation  of  Safe-conducts  Granted  to  Heretics.  More's  Reverse.  Can- 
not Violate  his  Conscience.      His  Bitterness  toward  Heretics  Unchanged 135-144 

CHAPTER  XX. 

The  Royal  Patroness.  Counter  Influences.  Anne  Boleyn's  connection  with  the 
Reformation.  Richard  Harman.  Tyndale's  Gift.  Anne's  Influence  in  favor  of  the 
Bible 145-149 

CHAPTER  XXI. 

The  Martyrdom  of  Tyndale.  Efforts  to  Entrap  Tyndale.  The  English  Envoy, 
Stephen  Vaughan.  Interviews  with  Tyndale.  Sir  Thomas  More,  the  Instigator  of 
these  Measures.  Vaughan's  Plea  for  Religious  Liberty.  The  New  Envoy ;  his  Efforts 
to  seize  Tyndale.  The  Reformer's  Life  at  Antwerp.  The  Bishops'  Plot.  Tyfldale's 
Apprehension.  Thomas  Pointz.  The  Decree  of  Augsburg.  Tyndale's  Condemna- 
tion and  Death 150-162 

CHAPTER  XXII. 

Triumph  of  the  Principle.  Truth  not  Dependent  on  its  Champions.  Review  of 
the  Progress  of  the  Bible  up  to  Tyndale's  Death.  Thomas  Crumwell ;  grounds  of  his 
interest  in  the  People's  Bible.  Matthew's  Bible.  Its  Singular  Introduction  into  Eng- 
land. Authorized  by  the  King  for  use  in  Churches.  Allowed  to  all  Classes.  Henry's 
zeal;  stringent  requisitions  in  Favor  of  the  Bible;  copies  placed  in  Churches  for  the 
Use  of  the  People.  Its  Welcome  by  the  Commonalty.  Prelates  obliged  to  Counten- 
ance it.  Romish  Dogmas  in  Bad  Repute.  Henry's  Alarm  at  the  Influence  of  the  Bible. 
Restrictions  on  its  use.  The  Six  Articles.  Character  of  Edward's  Reign.  The  Prin- 
ciple Triumphant.  The  Protestant  Principle,  as  Applied  to  Bible-Translation.  Per- 
manence of  Tyndale's  New  Testament 163-177 

CHAPTER  XXIII. 

Three  Later  Versions.  Coverdale's  Bible.  Reasons  for  the  Undertaking.  Utility 
of  Various  Translations.  Character  of  the  Version.  Hindrances.  Coverdale,  the 
Overseer  of  the  Great  Bible  (Tyndale's).  His  nonconformity  and  sufferings.  Taver- 
NER's  Bible.  Cranmer's  Bible.  Early  Life  of  Cranmer.  Veneration  for  the 
Scriptures.  Influence  as  Primate  in  Favor  of  Vernacular  Translation.  Revision  ot 
Tyndale's  Version.  Preface.  Counter-plot  of  the  Bishops.  The  Anglican  Church. 
Cranmer's  Intolerance.  Treatment  of  Gardiner  ;  of  Hooper ;  of  Sectaries  and  Here- 
tics. Essential  Vice  of  a  State  Church.  Vital  Distinction  between  the  Anglican  and 
the  Romish  Church.     Progress  of  the  Bible  under  Edward  VI 178- 191 


TABLE   OF   CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 


The  Reign  of  Terror.  Character  of  Queen  Mary.  Her  Early  Misfortunes.  First 
Steps  on  Her  Accession.  Obscurantism  Inaugurated.  Protestant  Exiles.  Romanism 
Re-established.  Unparalleled  Cruelties.  The  Congregations.  Evidences  of  the 
Progressive  Influence  of  the  Bible 192-199 

CHAPTER  XXV. 

The  Genevan  Bible.  English  Exiles.  Spirit  of  the  Age  in  Respect  to  Bible-Transla- 
tion. Proposal  of  a  New  Version.  Zeal  of  the  Lay-exiles.  John  Bodleigh.  Peculiar 
Advantages  at  Geneva.  Calvin's  Preface  to  the  New  Testament.  Scholarship  of  the 
Genevan  Bible.  Division  into  Verses.  Becomes  the  Family  Bible  of  England.  Causes 
of  its  Success.  Its  Agency  in  the  Development  of  Puritanism.  Its  Influence  not 
wholly  Beneficial 200-206 

CHAPTER  XXVI. 

The  Bishops'  Bible.  Preliminary  View.  Liberal  Spirit  of  the  Returned  Exiles. 
Counter-policy  of  Elizabeth.  Action  of  Her  First  Parliament.  The  Court  of  High 
Commission.  The  Star  Chamber.  The  Reformed  Clergy  Succumb  to  the  Queen  ; 
Establishment  of  Uniformity.  Nonconformity  the  Nurse  of  Civil  Freedom.  List  of 
Dangerous  Innovations.  Grounds  of  Puritan  Dissent.  Measures  of  Archbishop  Parker. 
Trial  of  Sampson  and  Humphrey  ;  Citation  of  the  London  Ministers  ;  Oppressive 
Injunction      Coverdale  and  Fox.     Leading  Traits  of  the  Conflicting  Parties. .   207-220 

CHAPTER  XXVII. 

The  Bishops'  Bible — Continued.  Archbishop  Parker  the  Projector  and  Overseer  of 
the  Work.  His  Motives.  Continued  Influence  of  the  Genevan  Version.  Anti-Epis- 
copa^Fealure  of  the  Church-Bible.  Parker's  Preface.  Scholarship  of  the  Bishops' 
Bible.  Its  Sectarian  Character.  Subsequent  Restoration  of  Readings  from  the  Vul- 
gate    221-228 

CHAPTER  XXVIII. 

The  Rhemish  OR  Douay  Bible.  Translators'  Views  of  Vernacular  Bibles.  Policy  of 
the  Romish  Church.  Cardinal  Ximenes.  Reasons  for  this  Translation.  Its  Character- 
istics.    Influence  of  the  Douay  Bible 229  232 

CHAPTER  XXIX. 

The  Common  Version.  State  of  Parties  at  the  Death  of  Elizabeth.  Reactionary 
Influence  of  Persecution.  Prospect  of  a  Puritan  Sovereign.  James'  non  commital 
Policy.  Summons  the  Hampton  Court  Conference.  Triumph  of  the  Prelatical 
Party.  Royal  Epistle.  New  Translation  Proposed  by  the  Puritans.  Motives  of  James" 
Concurrence.  State  of  Public  Opinion.  Hugh  Broughton's  efforts  for  a  Revision  of 
the  Church-Bible.  The  Puritanic  Influence  of  the  Genevan  Version.  The  King's 
plan 233-244 

CHAPTER  XXX. 

The  Common  Version — Continued.  The  King's  liberal  arrangements  for  Securing 
and  Rewarding  Competent  Hevisors.  Rules  of  Translation  prescribed  by  the  King. 
Principles  involved  in  these  Rules.  Their  Influence  on  the  Character  of  the  Version. 
Its  Scholarship.  Contemporaneous  Criticism.  Obstacles  to  its  Reception,  within  and 
without  the  Church.  Measures  for  a  New  Translation.  The  Just  Claims  of  the  Com- 
mon Version.  Leading  Characteristics  and  Influences  of  English  Bible- Transla- 
tion    245-258 


TABLE   OF   CONTENTS.  XI 

CHAPTER  XXXI. 

Demand  for  a  more  Thorough  Revision.  Early  movements  for  Revision.  Action 
of  the  Long  Parliament.  Robert  Gell's  Essay.  Bishop  Lowth's  Translation  of  Isaiah. 
Gilbert  Wakefield's  Version.  Dr.  George  Campbell's  Work.  Archbishop  Newcome's 
Critical  Versions  and  Historical  View.  The  Advance  in  Learning.  Modern  Era  of 
Textual  Criticism.  Discovery  of  Ancient  MSS.  Labors  of  Mill,  Griesbach,  Tischen- 
dorf,  and  others.  What  Modern  Scholarship  has  Accomplished.  Discoveriesin  Archae- 
ology, etc.  American  Bible  Union.  Versions  of  the  Five  Clergymen.  The  Anglo- 
American  Revision.  Rules  for  the  Guidance  of  Translators.  The  New  Testament 
Published 259-266 

APPENDIX. 

I.  Specimens  of  the  Early  English  Versions 268-281 

II.  The  Immaculate  Conception 282 

III.  The  Soldier's  Bible 282-284 


CHAPTER   I. 

THE    BIBLE    THE    PEOPLE'S     CHARTER.       RELATION     OF     WICKLIFFE    TO 

HIS    AGE. 

It  was  a  great  day  for  England,  when  John  Wickliffe  first  con- 
ceived the  idea  of  giving  to  his  countrymen  the  Whole  Bible  in  the 
common  tongue.  The  execution  of  that  idea  is  the  leading  event  of 
the  fourteenth  century.  It  would  not  be  too  much,  perhaps,  to  call 
it  the  leading  event  in  Anglo-Saxon  history. 

To  Wickliffe  belongs  the  peculiar  honor  of  having  rekindled,  from 
the  ashes  of  the  past,  the  doctrine  of  the  essential  worth  and  equal 
rights  of  men.  His  claim  that,  in  regard  to  the  highest  interest  of 
humanity,  all  men  are  equal  ;  namely,  in  the  right  of  each  to  know 
for  himself,  and  to  obey  the  will  of  God  ;  that  here  the  king  can  claim 
nothing  above  the  serf,  the  priest  nothing  above  the  layman  ;  the 
absolute  supremacy  of  the  individual  conscience  in  matters  of  relig- 
ion ;  this  involved  the  ultimate  recognition  of  all  inferior  rights. 

This  idea,  which  breathes  through  the  whole  spirit  of  primitive 
Christianity,  had  been  long  lost  to  the  world.  It  was  indeed  alien  to 
the  spirit  of  the  world.  The  most  enlightened  nations  of  antiquity 
knew  it  not.  The  wisest  and  purest  of  pagan  philosophers,  who 
searched  deepest  into  the  character  of  God  and  the  destiny  of  men, 
never  attained  to  this  glorious  and  ennobling  truth.  Even  when  they 
come  so  near  it  as  to  discern  a  special  providence  guiding  the  affairs 
of  individuals,  it  is  still  only  the  great  men,  the  patriots  and  philoso- 
phers, whom  they  deem  worthy  of  such  care.  "  Great  men,"  say 
they,  "  enjoy  the  peculiar  oversight  and  influence  of  the  gods  ;  infe- 
rior persons  they  disregard."  The  highest  truths,  those  especially 
which  respect  the  nature  of  God,  must  be  veiled  in  mysteries  and 
sealed  by  oaths  from  the  vulgar  rabble,  who  are  to  be  held  in  subjec- 
tion by  scarecrows  and  mummeries,  which  the  wise  ones  laugh  at. 
Even  their  Elysium  was  peopled  only  by  the  spirits  of  sages  and 
heroes.  Thus  were  the  masses  of  the  human  race  abandoned,  to  live 
and  die  like  the  brutes  which  perish. 

When  Christ  appeared,  there  dawned  a  new  day  for  the  poor  and 
down-trodden.  He  made  it  the  distinguishing  glory  of  his  ministry 
to  preach  the  Gospel  to  the  poor.     The  Christian  communities,  which 


2  ENGLISH   BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

owed  their  existence  to  the  immediate  effusion  of  his  Spirit  after  his 
ascension,  were  strictly  companies  of  brethren,  with  one  Head  and 
Lawgiver,  their  risen  and  glorified  Lord.  Men  from  the  most  diverse 
conditions  of  society  here  met  on  terms  of  perfect  equality  ;  united  by 
a  noble  and  endearing  relationship,  whose  ties  were  stronger  than 
those  of  caste,  or  blood,  or  nation.  What  a  foundation  was  here  laid 
for  the  protection  and  elevation  of  the  weak  and  defenceless  classes  of 
society  ! 

With  the  decline  of  the  apostolic  spirit  in  other  respects,  this  idea 
also  faded  from  the  Christian  consciousness.  A  splendid  hierarchy, 
appointed  to  rule  God's  heritage,  was  an  institution  utterly  at  variance 
with  the  conception  of  the  Church  as  a  community  of  brethren.  With 
the  growth  and  consolidation  of  this  mighty  spiritual  power,  the  lay 
element  in  the  Church  continually  declined  in  importance,  till  at 
length  the  people  became  the  mere  tools  and  bond-slaves  of  the  priest- 
hood. 

The  aim  of  the  Romish  prelacy  was  no  less  than  the  entire  mo- 
nopoly of  all  ecclesiastical  and  all  secular  rule.  The  vital  element  of 
power,  knowledge,  it  had  gradually  withdrawn  wholly  into  its  own 
hands.  It  has  frequently  been  made  the  subject  of  praise  to  the 
papal  clergy,  that  they  alone  were  the  depositaries  of  learning,  at  a 
period  when  all  other  classes  of  society  were  sunk  in  ignorance  and 
barbarism.  Should  it  not  rather  be  accounted  their  shame  ?  Who 
can  doubt,  that  if  the  hosts  of  the  Romish  priesthood  had  encouraged 
the  general  diffusion  of  knowledge,  the  dark  ages  would  have  been 
ages  of  light  ?  Could  not  the  parish  priest  have  awakened,  in  the 
humble  portion  of  his  flock,  that  spirit  of  improvement  which  is  every- 
where, even  in  the  most  debased  heathen  countries,  the  fruit  of  Pro- 
lestant  missions  ?  Could  not  the  monastery  have  become  a  fountain 
of  intelligence  to  all  the  adjacent  community  ?  Boast  not  of  the  light 
thus  hid  within  the  cloister,  for  the  use  and  delight  of  its  few  holy 
inmates,  while  thousands  of  their  fellow-creatures  groped,  under 
their  very  walls,  in  the  blindness  of  the  deepest  midnight  ! 

But  a  general  diffusion  of  knowledge,  and  the  monopoly  of  power 
in  the  hands  of  a  few,  are  ideas  entirely  incompatible  with  each  other. 
The  power  of  the  hierarchy  demanded  the  ignorance  of  the  masses. 
The  policy  by  which  it  reached  its  end  was  masterly.  When  the  Holy 
Scriptures  were  taken  from  the  common  people,  they  lost  the  charter 
of  their  rights  as  men  ;  in  time,  the  very  consciousness  of  their  man- 
hood. Thus  the  great  body  of  all  the  nations  of  Christendom  sunk 
from  one  degree  of  debasement  to  another,  till  they  became  the  prey 
of  every  spoiler  ;  till  the  people,  the  cultivators  of  the  soil,  the  indus- 


THE   BIBLE   THE   PEOPLE  S   CHARTER.  3 

trious  artisans,  the  actual  producers  of  the  national  wealth,  had  no 
power,  no  rights.  They  were  the  rabble,  the  vulgar  herd,  the  mob, 
to  be  used  or  abused  without  limit  or  mercy,  for  the  benefit  of  their 
masters. 

Nothing  could  more  significantly  indicate  their  social  position,  than 
the  scantiness  of  contemporaneous  information  in  regard  to  it.  His- 
tory relates  the  doings  of  Popes  and  Councils,  of  Kings  and  Nobles. 
But  it  seems  rarely  to  have  occurred  to  the  learned  chronicler  of  the 
times,  that  the  condition  of  the  people  constitutes  any  part  of  history. 
Now  and  then  some  social  earthquake  rends  the  veil,  and  we  catch  a 
glimpse  which  makes  the  heart  ache  ;  for  we  see  there,  spite  of  igno- 
rance, superstition,  and  all  the  vices  of  their  degraded  state,  living 
human  souls,  burning  and  writhing  under  the  keen  sense  of  outrage 
and  oppression  ;  capable,  therefore,  of  sweet  affections,  of  generous 
and  noble  deeds,  of  goodness  and  piety.  At  some  new  or  more  gall- 
ing wrong,  outraged  humanity  has  overburst  the  bounds  of  discreet 
submission.  The  rude  mass,  for  a  moment,  heaves  convulsively  ; 
agonizing  cries  for  redress,  fierce  threats  of  vengeance,  disturb  the 
air  ;  and  then  it  is  crushed  down  again  by  the  iron  hand  of  power,  to 
weep,  and  bleed,  and  curse  in  silence. 

Such  was  the  condition  of  a  majority  of  the  inhabitants  of  England 
in  the  fourteenth  century.  Where  now  was  help  and  redemption  to 
be  looked  for  ?  The  barons  had  already,  a  hundred  years  before, 
wrested  from  the  monarch  the  recognition  of  their  own  rights,  the 
famous  Magna  Charta.  But  on  their  side  was  wealth  and  power. 
With  his  immense  landed  possessions,  his  castle-fortress,  his  thou- 
sands of  retainers,  each  baron  was  a  petty  king.  Combination  among 
these  powerful  lords  was  equivalent  to  success.  But  the  poor,  unlet- 
tered, unarmed  populace  gained  nothing  by  this  triumph  of  their  mas- 
ters. Their  only  hope,  though  they  knew  it  not,  was  in  the  restora- 
tion of  what  will  ever  be  the  only  Magna  Charta  of  the  weak — The 
Holy  Scriptures. 

Then  arose  the  Man  of  the  Age.  Among  the  brilliant  and  impos- 
ing forms  that  crowd  the  arena  of  that  stirring  time — the  magnificent 
Edward  III.,  and  his  chivalrous  son,  the  martial  barons,  the  gorgeous 
array  of  ecclesiastical  dignitaries — stands  alone  and  preeminent  the 
apostolic  form  of  John  Wickliffe,  Rector  of  Lutterworth. 

We  call  him  the  man  of  the  age,  who  into  a  dead  Past  drops  the 
seed  of  a  living  Future  ;  who  infuses  into  the  social  mass  leavening 
ideas,  which,  sooner  or  later,  by  their  inherent  quickening  energy, 
work  essential  changes  in  the  inner  and  outer  life  of  society.  This 
John  Wickliffe  did.     The  supreme  and  binding  authority  of  the  Holy 


4  ENGLISH   BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

Scriptures  as  the  guide  of  Christian  faith  and  life  ;  the  right  of  all 
men,  without  distinction,  to  the  possession  of  the  Scriptures  ;  these 
are  the  living  thoughts  which  Wicklrffe  cast  into  the  soil  of  the  four- 
teenth century.  They  inspired  the  labors  of  his  active  years  ;  they 
culminated  in  that  great  gift  to  the  Anglo-Saxon  race,  the  Holy  Bible 
in  the  common  tongue. 

To  us,  in  this  later  age,  these  ideas  may  seem  too  obvious  to  merit 
the  place  here  assigned  them.  Not  so  when  first  announced.  Then, 
they  startled  like  an  earthquake.  And  well  they  might  ;  for  they 
struck  at  the  root  of  that  vast  system  of  spiritual  fraud,  by  which 
merchandise  had  so  long  been  made  of  the  souls  of  men. 

It  may  seem,  also,  that  too  wide  and  lasting  an  influence  is  ascribed 
to  Wickliffe's  version  of  the  Scriptures.  A  work  circulated  only  in 
manuscript,  and  at  a  period  when  so  few  of  the  laity  acquired  even 
the  first  rudiments  of  learning,  cannot,  it  may  be  thought,  have  made 
a  very  deep  impression  on  the  national  character.  But  when  we  take 
into  account  Wickliffe's  preparatory  labors,  for  more  than  thirty 
years,  it  will  be  seen  that  no  book,  before  the  invention  of  printing, 
ever  enjoyed  such  advantages  for  becoming  generally  known.  His 
conflicts  with  the  Papacy  at  home  and  abroad,  involving  political  and 
social  questions  of  vital  interest  to  the  nation,  his  preaching  and  his 
writings  in  the  despised  vernacular,  and  the  labors  of  his  "  poore 
priestes"  (those  pious  itinerants  whom  he  had  sent  forth  over  the 
length  and  breadth  of  England),  had  awakened  a  mental  activity,  a 
spirit  of  inquiry,  before  unknown  :  and  in  numerous  instances  an 
earnest  religious  life.  The  attention  of  all  classes  had  thus  been 
turned  to  the  Holy  Scriptures.  Among  high  and  low,  there  was  that 
hunger  for  the  word  of  God,  whose  power  to  conquer  difficulties  we, 
in  this  day  of  intellectual  and  spiritual  fullness,  can  but  imperfectly 
appreciate. 

The  details  of  the  following  chapters  will  enable  us  to  estimate 
more  perfectly  the  labors  and  influence  of  this  great  man,  the  Father 
of  English  Bible-Translation. 


CHAPTER  II. 


THE  PAPAL  ARMY  IN  ENGLAND. 


We  first  find  Wickliffe  in  active  conflict  with  the  errors  and  abuses 
of  the  age,  about  the  middle  of  the  fourteenth  century.  Let  us  briefly 
survey  the  religious  circumstances  of  England  at  that  time. 

At  the  first  glance,  we  observe  three  leading  forces,  which,  from  the 
date  of  the  Conquest,  had  been  contending  for  supremacy  in  Eng- 
land,- viz.  :  the  Crown,  the  Barons,  and  the  Papacy.  The  monarchs 
strove  continually  to  stretch  the  royal  prerogative  into  absolutism  ; 
the  barons  to  maintain  and  increase  their  feudal  rights  at  the  expense 
of  the  crown  ;  while  the  Pope  aimed  at  nothing  less  than  to  make 
England  a  mere  appanage  of  Rome.  In  this  great  game,  the  Papacy 
had  proved  itself  by  far  the  shrewder  hand.  Siding  now  with  the 
king,  now  with  the  nobles,  it  had  improved  every  internal  division  in 
the  kingdom,  every  appeal  to  itself  as  supreme  arbiter,  for  securing 
new  advantages  and  a  firmer  hold.  It  had  now  an  ecclesiastical 
army  in  England,  countless  in  numbers,  so  thoroughly  organized  and 
so  bound  by  self-interest  to  its  will,  as  to  render  the  Pontiff  of  Rome 
the  controlling  power  in  the  English  realm.  This  army  was  arranged 
in  three  grand  divisions.     First, 

THE      SECULAR      CLERGY. 

This  body,  including  bishops  with  their  subordinate  dignitaries,  and 
the  various  ranks  of  parish  priests  under  their  control,  were  charged 
with  the  spiritual  oversight  and  instruction  of  the  community.  To 
the  office  of  the  prelates  were  attached  immense  landed  estates, 
princely  revenues  and  high  civil,  as  well  as  ecclesiastical  powers  ;  the 
lower  clergy,  residing  on  livings  among  the  people,  were  supported 
chiefly  by  tithes  levied  on  their  respective  parishes. 

The  corruption  of  this  body  throughout  Christendom  had  given 
rise,  even  so  early  as  the  fourth  century,  to  monachism.  Their 
frightful  profligacy  in  the  time  of  Wickliffe  was  mainly  due  to  three 
causes,  all  of  which  originated  directly  from  their  connection  with  the 
See  of  Rome. 

ist.  Their  exemption,  in  common  with  all  other  orders  of  the 
clergy,   from  civil  jurisdiction.     A  clergyman,   of  whatever  offence 


6  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

against  the  laws  of  the  land  he  might  be  guilty,  could  not  be  tried  by 
any  civil  court  of  the  realm.  All  such  offenders  were  claimed  by  the 
Church,  whose  tribunals,  subject  only  to  appeals  to. Rome,  dealt  so 
tenderly  with  her  beloved  sons,  that  the  land  groaned  under  the 
crimes  of  its  religious  teachers.  It  was  publicly  stated  to  Henry  II. 
by  his  judges',  that  during  the  first  ten  years  of  his  reign,  more  than  a 
hundred  murders  had  been  committed  by  clergymen,  besides  thefts, 
robberies,  and  other  crimes,  for  which  they  could  not  punish  them.* 
Successive  English  sovereigns  strove  with  all  their  might  to  wrest 
from  them  so  dangerous  an  immunity.  But  this  independence  of 
secular  government  being  essential  to  the  Pontiff's  absolute  control 
over  his  vassals,  their  morals,  and  the  welfare  of  the  country,  were  of 
no  weight  in  the  balance.  Thus,  early  in  this  century,  an  effort  hav- 
ing been  made  by  Edward  II.  to  bring  the  clergy  under  some  subjec- 
tion to  the  laws,  Pope  Clement  directed  a  bull  to  the  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury,  complaining  "  that  clerks  invested  with  the  sacerdotal 
character,  and  shining  with  the  splendor  of  pontifical  dignity,  were 
tried  by  laymen,  condemned,  and  hanged,  when  found  guilty  of  rob- 
bery or  murder,  to  the  great  provocation  of  the  Supreme  King,  who 
hath  forbidden  the  secular  power  to  touch  his  anointed."  He 
requires,  therefore,  that  the  grievance  be  redressed,  on  the  penalty  of 
excommunication  to  the  offending  monarch  and  his  kingdom. 

2d.  Their  enforced  celibacy.  The  native  English  clergy  long 
resisted  the  imposition  of  this  part  of  the  Romish  policy  ;  but  were  at 
length  compelled  to  bow  to  the  iron  system,  which  sought  to  bind 
them  to  the  central  power  by  the  obliteration  of  every  tie  of  family 
and  country.  The  name  of  Anselm,  shine  as  it  may  in  the  history  of 
systematic  theology,  should  be  forever  infamous  to  the  friend  of 
humanity,  for  the  pitiless  rigor  with  which  he  enforced  this  measure. 
In  1102,  he  held  an  ecclesiastical  council  at  London,  where  no  fewer 
than  ten  canons  were  made  for  this  single  object.  All  priests,  even 
the  very  lowest,  were  commanded  to  put  away  their  wives  immedi- 
ately, not  to  suffer  them  to  live  on  any  lands  belonging  to  the  Church, 
never  to  see  or  speak  to  them,  except  in  cases  of  the  greatest  necessity 
and  in  the  presence  of  two  or  three  witnesses.  '  Those  unhallowed 
wretches  who  refused,  were  instantly  to  be  deposed  and  excommuni- 
cated, and  all  their  goods,  as  well  as  the  goods  and  persons  of  their 
wives,  as  in  the  case  of  adulteresses,  were  to  be  forfeited  to  the  bishop 
of  the  diocese. "f  Succeeding  prelates  followed  the  lead  of  Anselm, 
and  episcopal  and  legantine  councils  urged  the  measure,  till  the  long 

*  Henry's  Hist.,  vol.  vi.  p.  59-  t  Henry,  vol.  v.  p.  307. 


THE   PAPAL   ARMY   IN   ENGLAND.  7 

struggle  ended    in  the  final  establishment  of  celibacy,  and  the  secular 
clergy  were  sealed  to  utter  and  irreclaimable  profligacy. 

3d.  The  sale  of  clerical  offices.  The  claim  of  the  Papacy  to  the 
control  of  the  English  benefices,  asserted  centuries  before,  but  long 
withstood  by  the  secular  power,  was  at  this  time  fully  established  in 
practice.  The  Pope  of  Rome  was  now  farmer-general  of  the  English 
Church.  He  who  could  pay  highest  was  sure  of  the  place  in  market, 
whether  it  were  a  country  parish,  or  the  Primacy  of  England  ;  and 
the  buyer  must  in  turn,  farm  it  out  in  the  way  which  would  bring  the 
largest  percentage  on  the  cost.  The  richest  prizes  fell  to  Italians, 
parasites  of  the  Pope,  some  of  whom,  though  unable  to  speak  a  word 
of  English,  and  who  had  never  set  foot  on  English  soil,  held  twenty, 
thirty,  nay,  some  of  them  fifty  and  sixty  valuable  benefices  in  the 
English  Church.  On  the  revenues  thus  obtained  they  lived  in  mag- 
nificence at  Rome,  and  laid  up  enormous  fortunes,  notwithstanding 
the  large  yearly  sums  paid  out  of  them  into  the  papal  treasury.  The 
resident  clergy  who  held  of  such  masters  must,  of  necessity,  be  like 
their  masters.  An  honest,  merciful,  conscientious  priest  stood  no 
chance  of  promotion  under  such  a  system.  Hence,  as  we  learn  from 
Wickliffe,  men  who  were  too  poor  or  too  conscientious  to  pay  the 
required  bribes,  were  virtually  excluded  from  the  sacred  office,  what- 
ever might  be  their  piety  and  talents.  Thus  the  professed  ministers 
of  salvation  were  converted  into  an  army  of  Romish  bailiffs,  whose 
great  business  it  was  to  enrich  their  masters  and  themselves  out  of  the 
plunder  of  the  people,  and  whose  anathemas  were  launched  from  the 
pulpit  against  those  who  withheld  tithes,  as  worse  than  adulterers, 
murderers,  and  blasphemers.* 

*  "  Genera]  excommunications,"  as  they  were  called,  which  came  into  use 
about  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  century,  "were,"  says  Henry,  "at  first  de- 
nounced chiefly  against  such  as  injured  the  clergy  by  detaining  their  tithes,  de- 
frauding them  of  any  of  their  dues,  or  stealing  anything  belonging  to  the  Church. 
They  were  to  be  published  by  every  parish  priest  in  his  holy  vestments,  with  bells 
tolling  and  candles  lighted,  before  the  whole  congregation,  in  the  mother  tongue, 
on  Christmas,  Easter,  Pentecost,  and  All-Hallows-day.  That  these  excommuni- 
cations might  make  the  greater  impression  on  tender  consciences  or  timorous 
natures,  they  contained  the  most  horrible  infernal  curse  that  could  be  devised  : 
*  Let  them  be  accursed  eating  and  drinking  ;  walking  and  sitting  ;  speaking  and 
holding  their  peace  ;  waking  and  sleeping  ;  rowing  and  riding  ;  laughing  and 
weeping  ;  in  house  and  in  field  ;  on  water  and  on  land,  in  all  places.  Cursed  be 
their  head  and  their  thoughts  ;  their  eyes  and  their  ears  :  their  tongues  and  their 
lips  ;  their  teeth  and  their  throats  ;  their  shoulders  and  their  breasts  ;  their  feet 
and  their  legs  ;  their  thighs  and  their  inwards.  Let  them  remain  accursed  from 
the  bottom  of  the  foot  to  the  crown  of  the  head,  unless  they  bethink  themselves 


ENGLISH   BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 


THE     MONKS 


The  Monks,  known  also  as  the  Regular  Clergy,  and  the  Religious 
Orders,  lived  in  small  communities  by  themselves,  having  taken  the 
vows  of  perpetual  chastity,  poverty  and  seclusion. 

We  have  no  right  to  doubt  that  monachism  was,  in  its  origin,  a  sin- 
cere attempt  to  revive  the  piety  of  the  primitive  Church  ;  or  that  it  did 
for  a  time  check  the  progress  of  corruption,  and  by  the  cultivation  of 
learning,  shed  an  ameliorating  influence  into  the  darkness  and  barbar- 
ism of  the  times.  But  it  had  an  inherent  vice  in  its  constitution — a 
want  of  adaptation  to  the  nature  of  man.  It  was  a  morbid,  not  a 
healthy,  offshoot  of  Christianity.  For  a  while,  the  spirit  infused  into 
it  by  its  austere  founders  maintained  supremacy.  But  with  the 
growth  of  worldly  power  and  wealth,  this  artificial  life  gradually  died 
out,  and  the  latent  evils  of  the  system  developed  themselves  in  loath- 
some luxuriance.  Ambition,  avarice,  and  the  grossest  forms  of  vice 
took  the  place  of  ascetic  virtue.  An  overwrought  spiritualism 
reacted  into  a  swinish  sensualism.  Monasteries  became  the  lazar- 
houses  of  Christendom.  Such  do  we  find  them  in  England  in  the 
fourteenth  century. 

The  wealth  of  the  English  monks  at  this  period  almost  passes  be- 
lief. During  the  eleventh  and  twelfth  centuries,  the  endowment  of 
monasteries  was  a  mania  in  Christendom.  Lands,  buildings,  precious 
stones,  gold  and  silver,  were  lavished  upon  them  with  unsparing  prod- 
igality. Rich  men,  disgusted  with  the  world,  or  conscience-stricken 
for  their  sins,  not  unfrequently  entered  the  cloister  and  made  over  to 
it  their  whole  property.  During  the  crusading  epidemic,  many  mort- 
gaged their  estates  to  the  religious  houses  for  ready  money,  who  never 
returned,  or  were  too  much  impoverished  to  redeem  them.  In  this 
way  vast  riches  accrued  to  their  establishments.  They  understood,  to 
perfection,  all  the  traditional  machinery  of  the  Church  for  extracting 
money  from  high  and  low.  The  exhibition  of  relics,  the  performance 
of  miracles,  and  above  all  the  sale  of  indulgences,  and  of  masses  for 
the  dead,*  formed  an  open  sluice  through  which  a  steady  golden 
stream  poured  into  the  monastic  treasury. 

and  come  to  satisfaction.     And  just  as  this  candle  is  deprived  of  its  present  light, 
so  let  them  be  deprived  of  their  souls  in  hell.'  " 

*  The  will  of  Lord  Hastings,  made  long  before  his  death,  and  indicating,  there- 
fore, a  common  usage  of  the  time,  (and  this  so  late  as  the  reign  of  Richard  III.) 
gives  some  idea  of  the  wealth  realized  from  the  source  last  named.  After  other 
specifications,  he  bequeaths  to  ten  conventual  establishments,  property  of  vari- 
ous kinds,  amounting  in  value  to  not  less  than  fifty  thousand  dollars  of  our  time, 


THE   PAPAL   ARMY   IN   ENGLAND.  9 

Of  the  extent  and  magnificence  of  their  establishments,  and  their 
sumptuous  style  of  living,  we  have  a  sufficient  index  in  the  fact,  that 
they  often  entertained  the  sovereign  with  his  whole  retinue  when  on  a 
royal  progress,  and  that  Parliaments  and  State  Councils  were  some- 
times held  in  their  spacious  halls.  We  must  not  fancy  the  English 
monastery  as  a  gloomy,  isolated  residence,  where  emaciated  anchorites 
wept  and  fasted,  and  prayed  their  lives  away  in  holy  conflict  with  sin 
and  Satan.  No  more  cheerful  and  imposing  sight  could  meet  the 
traveler's  eye  than  the  stately  Abbey,  with  its  church  of  costliest 
architecture,  its  abbatial  palace,  its  cloisters,  dormitories,  stables,  and 
numerous  offices,  its  bowling-alleys,  fish-ponds,  walks  and  gardens,  all 
enclosed  by  the  embattled  wall  with  its  grand,  sculptured  gates  ; 
while  outside  clustered  the  humble  dwellings  of  the  dependent  ten- 
antry, and  the  broad  Abbey  lands  with  their  beautiful  variety  of 
grain-fields,  orchards,  vineyards,  pastures  stocked  with  well-fed  herds 
and  forests  swarming  with  game,  stretching  beyond  the  limit  of  the 
eye.*  Within  these  little  territories  the  Abbots  reigned  as  sovereign 
princes,  coined  their  own  money,  decided  at  their  tribunals  all  civil 
and  criminal  as  well  as  ecclesiastical  cases,  and  exercised  the  power 
of  life  and  death. 

The  Abbey  kitchen,  cellars,  and  refectory  bore  witness  to  the  care 
bestowed  on  the  well-being  of  its  holy  inmates.  They  did  full  justice 
to  the  bountiful  provision  thus  made  for  their  growth  and  edification. 
The  Abbey  cook  was  in  great  odor  of  sanctity  among  his  brethren. 
The  historian  of  Croyland  Abbey  gratefully  records  the  pious  disposi- 
tion of  Brother  Lawrence  Chateres,  cook  of  that  monastery,  who, 
"  animated  by  the  love  of  God  and  zeal  for  religion,"  had  given  forty 
pounds  for  the  recreation  of  the  convent  with  the  milk  of  almonds  on 
fish-days.  By  the  help  of  this  nourishing  little  delicacy,  "served," 
by  direction  of  the  authorities,  "  with  the  finest  bread  and  best 
honey,"  the  brethren  might  hope  to  sustain  those  trying  Fridays 
when  the  bill  of  fare  only  numbered  from  ten  to  twenty  dishes.  Well 
might  the  old  ballad  sing  : 

on  condition  of  a  perpetual  yearly  service  "  for  the  sowles  of  me  and  my  wife, 
myn  ancestors,  and  all  Christian  sowles,"  to  be  performed  "  solemnly  with  note, 
Placebo  and  Dirige,  and  on  the  morrow  mass  of  requiem  with  note."  To  ensure 
a  handsome  start  on  the  ascent  to  bliss,  he  further  directs  that,  as  soon  as  notice 
of  his  death  is  received,"  a  thousand  priests  shall  say  a  thousand  Placebo  and 
Dirige  with  a  thousand  masses  for  my  sowle,  in  oon  day,  if  reasonably  possible." 
Alas  for  the  poor  who  must  begin  at  the  foot  of  the  ladder,  aided  only  by  the 
stray  provision  "  for  all  Christian  sowles  " !  How  hardly  shall  they  that  have  not 
riches  enter  the  kingdom  of  heaven  ! — so  reads  this  Romish  gospel. 

*  The  lands  of  Fountains'  Abbey  extended  thirty  miles  without  interruption. 


IO  ENGLISH   BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

"  O  the  monks  o'  Melrose  made  gude  kale 
On  Friday,  when  they  fasted  !" 

Truly,  it  was  something  of  a  chasm  which  separated  these  monks 
from  those  which  Anthony,  ten  centuries  before,  gathered  around  him 
in  the  deserts  of  Upper  Egypt. 

Their  profligacy  was  equal  to  their  luxury.  Those  hells  of  vice, 
uncovered  in  the  monasteries  by  the  commissioners  of  Henry  VIII.  in 
the  sixteenth  century,  were  not  the  growth  of  that  age  alone.  Such 
as  they  were  then  they  were  two  centuries  before,  and  the  cry  that 
went  up  from  them  to  the  ear  of  heaven  was  like  that  of  Sodom  and 
Gomorrah. 

These  establishments,  with  all  their  accumulations  of  property  and 
influence,  were  subject  to  no  jurisdiction  within  the  realm.  Formerly, 
they  had  been  amenable  to  the  bishops  of  the  diocese  in  which  they 
were  located.  But  this  did  not  suit  the  policy  of  the  Romish  Pontiff, 
whose  power  and  gains  were  best  promoted  by  keeping  the  different 
divisions  of  his  army  quite  distinct  from  each  other,  united  in  nothing 
but  their  common  opposition  to  the  civil  government  and  their  com- 
mon dependence  on  himself.  He  had,  therefore,  exempted  the 
monasteries,  one  by  one,  from  subjection  to  episcopal  authority,  and 
made  them  directly  answerable  to  himself.  The  monks  at  first  re- 
joiced at  their  escape  from  the  bishops  ;  but  soon  found  that  they  had 
exchanged  their  tyranny  for  that  of  a  harder  master.  Their  interior 
affairs  were  now  under  the  Pontiff's  immediate  cognizance  and  direc- 
tion ;  and  neither  service  nor  money  could  be  denied  to  a  superior 
from  whom  so  much  was  to  be  hoped  and  feared. 

In  some  respects  the  Monks  were,  without  doubt,  public  benefac- 
tors. The  Abbey  lands  were  the  best  cultivated  in  England  ;  and 
furnished  an  example  of  good  husbandry  which,  in  the  course  of 
time,  imparted  a  stimulus  to  the  agricultural  interests  of  the  whole 
country.  But  it  takes  free  and  hopeful  men  to  be  benefited  by  such 
an  example  ;  and  at  this  period,  the  burden  of  political  and  clerical 
oppression  lay  like  an  incubus  on  the  capacities  of  the  people.  Father 
Oberlin,  the  good  Swiss  pastor,  could  change  his  rocky  Alpine  valley 
into  a  paradise  as  if  by  miracle.  It  was  indeed  by  a  miracle,  such  as 
Monk  never  wrought — the  transformation  of  the  dull  boors  of  the 
valley  into  beings  who  had  something  to  love,  and  something  to  live 
for. 

The  hospitality  and  charity  of  the  Monks  has  also  been  celebrated. 
Let  full  justice  be  done  them  in  these  respects.  Yet  at  a  time  when 
travelers  were  as  scarce  as  diamonds,  the  tax  on  their  hospitality 
could  not  have  been  very  heavy  ;  and  the  jovial  brethren  no  doubt 


THE   PAPAL   ARMY   IN   ENGLAND.  II 

regarded  the  news  brought  by  the  visitor  from  distant  parts,  as  pay- 
ment in  full  for  his  three  days'  food  and  lodging.  Their  charity  to 
the  poor  was  precisely  such  as  has  always  been  witnessed  in  connec- 
tion with  the  Romish  Church  ;  a  charity  often  liberal  to  prodigality, 
but  founded  on  the  degradation  of  the  masses,  and  the  foster-mother 
of  mendicancy  with  its  train  of  vices  ;  a  charity  which  encourages  the 
vicious,  insolent  and  idle,  but  neglects  the  modest  and  virtuous  ; 
which  feeds  men  as  it  feeds  brutes,  in  total  disregard  of  their  improve- 
ment as  human  beings. 

The  higher  dignitaries  in  both  these  classes  of  the  clergy,  by  virtue 
of  their  great  temporalities  held  in  feudal  tenure  from  the  crown, 
were  barons  of  the  realm,  and  sat  in  parliament  under  the  title  of 
"  lords  spiritual,"  taking  precedence  in  rank  of  the  lay  nobles.  In 
the  summons  to  the  barons  of  the  realm  for  a  parliament,  archbishops, 
bishops,  and  abbots  already  headed  the  list.  They  too  had  their  for- 
tified castles  and  bands  of  armed  retainers,  by  whose  aid  they  alter- 
nately defied  the  monarch,  chastised  the  insolence  of  the  secular 
barons,  silenced  those  "  shoeless  villains,"  the  people,  in  their  disgust- 
ing clamors  for  bread  and  freedom  ;  or,  in  foreign  lands,  pushed  the 
triumphs  of  the  cross  or  the  quarrels  of  the  Pope  at  the  point  of  the 
sword.*  By  prescriptive  right,  derived  from  times  when  the  superior 
intelligence  of  the  clergy  gave  them  some  claim  to  the  distinction,  all 
the  high  offices  of  state,  all  places  of  trust  and  honor  about  the  court, 
were  in  the  hands  of  the  clergy.  In  137 1,  the  offices  of-  Lord  Chancel- 
lor, Lord  Treasurer,  Keeper  and  Clerk  of  the  Privy  Seal,  Master  of 
the  Rolls,  Master  in  Chancery,  Chancellor  and  Chamberlain  of  the 
Exchequer,  and  a  multitude  of  inferior  offices,  were  all  held  by 
churchmen. 

These  relations  enabled  them  to  resist  successfully  every  attempt 
to  bring  them  to  a  political  level  with  the  other  subjects  of  the  realm. 

*  Henry  Spencer,  Bishop  of  Norwich,  was  a  notable  specimen  of  the  martial 
prelate.  When,  in  1381,  the  men  of  Norfolk  rose  against  their  masters  with  the 
demand,  too  far  in  advance  of  their  age  to  be  successful,  for  "  life,  liberty  and  the 
pursuit  of  happiness,"  this  zealous  man  of  God  fell  upon  the  insurgents  at  the 
head  of  his  armed  followers,  slew  many,  and  carried  a  great  number  prisoners  to 
his  episcopal  castle.  Then  doffing  his  armor  for  the  priestly  vestments,  he  hastily 
administered  to  them  "  the  last  consolations  of  religion,"  and  sent  them  straight 
to  the  gibbet  and  the  block.  Two  years  after,  he  was  military  leader  in  a  cru- 
sade sent  from  England  to  support  the  claims  of  Urban  VI.  Being  obliged  to 
forego  his  plan  of  attacking  the  French  territory,  he  turned  in  a  tempest  of  fury 
upon  the  friendly  Flemish  town  of  Gravelines,  and  butchered  its  defenceless  in- 
habitants, leaving  not  so  much  as  one  infant  alive  ;  then  marching  on  to  Dunkirk 
he  left  four  thousand  Flemings  dead  on  the  field. 


12  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

Parliament  could  not  so  much  as  lay  a  tax  for  the  support  of  govern- 
ment upon  this  privileged  class,  nor  try  a  member  of  it  even  for  high 
treason.  Grants  to  the  crown,  and  all  the  questions  relating  to  the 
clergy,  were  settled  in  their  own  Convocations  or  Ecclesiastical  Parlia- 
ments, which  rivaled  the  royal  assembly  in  state  and  splendor.  Their 
episcopal  and  abbatial  courts  claimed  cognizance  of  all  civil  and 
criminal  cases,  in  which  "clerks,"  that  is  churchmen  of  whatever 
grade,  were  concerned,  even  though  the  other  party  were  a  layman  ; 
of  tithes,  marriages,  wills  ;  in  short,  of  everything  which  it  could  be 
pretended  was  in  the  remotest  way  connected  with  religion. 

As  if  this  were  not  enough,  they  maintained  in  full  force  the  ancient 
right  of  sanctuary,  that  is,  of  harboring  fugitives  from  justice.  Once 
within  the  sacred  precincts  of  church  or  abbey,  they  could  defy  the 
law  and  all  its  ministers.  This  usage,  first  intended  as  a  shield  to  the 
oppressed,  had  now  become  the  refuge  of  the  vilest  criminals.  Debtors, 
able  but  unwilling  to  pay,  thieves,  assassins,  felons  of  every  sort, 
looked  out  securely  from  under  the  wing  of  the  Church  and  laughed 
at  justice.  Thus  protected  through  the  day,  they  often  issued  from 
the  holy  portals  under  cover  of  night  to  pursue  their  trade  of  burglary, 
arson,  or  highway  robbery,  not  always  unattended  by  such  as  had  a 
more  permanent  residence  in  that  secure  abode. 

Learning  had,  of  course,  declined  under  these  influences.  A  clergy 
who  were  the  mere  mercenaries  of  a  foreign  power,  their  revenues  en- 
tirely independent  of  the  will  of  the  people,  and  whose  very  relations 
as  ministers  of  the  Church  furnished  incentives  to  pride,  worldliness, 
and  the  grossest  sensual  indulgence,  could  have  no  motives  to  seek  a 
generous  intellectual  culture. 

But  to  this  was  added  another  element.  One  of  the  essential  con- 
ditions of  their  power  was  the  ignorance  and  moral  debasement  of 
the  laity.  For  this  reason,  not  a  word  of  the  public  services  of  relig- 
ion was  allowed  to  be  given  in  a  tongue  which  the  people  could 
understand.  Why  then  should  they  weary  themselves  in  those  liberal 
and  sacred  studies  for  which  their  office  made  no  demands,  and  which 
would  be  a  hindrance  rather  than  a  help  in  the  path  of  clerical  pro- 
motion ?  In  some  departments  of  knowledge,  they  were  indeed 
adepts.  The  clergy  furnished  the  sharpest  lawyers  and  the  most 
adroit  medical  quacks,  of  any  class  in  the  kingdom.  But  of  all  that 
properly  pertained  to  the  spiritual  cffice,  they  were  profoundly  igno- 
rant. Multitudes  of  the  parish  priests  could  only  mumble  over  the 
prescribed  sentences  in  their  Latin  Missal  and  Breviary,  like  the  for- 
mula of  a  charm  or  incantation,  without  the  remotest  idea  of  its  mean- 
ing.    The  Monks,   once  foremost  in  learning,  were  in  a  still  worse 


THE    PAPAL   ARMY    IN    ENGLAND.  1 3 

condition.  Not  only  had  they  lost  the  ability  to  read  those  precious 
manuscripts,  which  lay  entombed  in  the  worm-eaten  chests  of  the  con- 
vent libraries,  but  the  very  tradition  that  such  languages  as  the  Hebrew 
and  Greek,  or  such  a  book  as  the  Bible,  ever  had  existence.  If  a 
brother,  animated  by  an  extraordinary  zeal  for  letters,  was  found 
copying  in  the  Scriptorium,  most  likely  it  was  at  the  sacrifice  of  some 
priceless  relic  of  antiquity,  which  had  been  sponged  out  to  furnish  the 
Vandal  scholar  parchment  for  the  absurd  Saint-Legend  he  was  ambi- 
tious of  transcribing. 

THE     MENDICANT     FRIARS. 

It  cannot  be  supposed  that  a  clergy,  such  as  has  been  described, 
much  as  they  might  be  feared,  could  be  generally  popular.  The  com- 
mon people,  especially,  were  prepared  by  their  neglect  of  the  duties  of 
their  office,  their  insolence  and  merciless  rapacity,  to  welcome  that 
new  fraternity  which  came  into  existence  early  in  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury, and  which  now  formed  the  most  efficient  corps  of  the  Papal  army 
in  England.  The  followers  of  St.  Francis  had  made  their  first  appear- 
ance in  the  kingdom  about  one  hundred  years  before  the  time  of 
Wickliffe.  They  were  now  to  be  found  in  every  lane  and  by-way, 
conspicuous  by  the  close-shaven  crown,  unshod  feet,  coarse  brown 
frock  and  rope  girdle,  by  which  they  sought  a  visible  contrast  with 
the  luxurious  Monks  and  Priests  of  the  old  regime. 

The  conception  of  the  Mendicant  Orders  bears  upon  it  the  unmis- 
takable stamp  of  genius.  It  sprang  up  in  the  bosom  of  an  indurated 
system,  with  all  the  force  and  freshness  of  a  new  vitality.  Amid  the 
worldly  luxury,  pomp,  and  indolence,  which  for  ages  had  character- 
ized the  Romish  clergy,  there  was  now  to  reappear  the  affecting  spec- 
tacle of  poverty,  humility,  and  active  benevolence  exhibited  by  Christ 
and  his  apostles.  Priest  and  Monk  had  alike  despised,  neglected  and 
oppressed  the  people.  The  Friars  were  to  devote  themselves  to 
the  people.  Instead  of  idly  withdrawing  into  monasteries,  under 
pretence  of  greater  sanctity,  they  were  to  spread  themselves,  an 
army  of  evangelists,  among  all  classes  ;  to  seek  out  the  poor  in  the 
highways  and  hedges,  and  offer  them  the  Gospel  on  such  terms  that 
the  humblest  might  share  its  blessings.  The  parish  priests  had  almost 
abandoned  preaching  as  a  part  of  their  vocation,  confining  their  ser- 
vices to  Mass  and  the  Confessional.  The  Friars  seized  on  the 
neglected  instrument  of  popular  influence,  and  by  it  made  themselves 
masters  of  the  common  mind.  The  priests  had  rendered  themselves 
odious  by  the  compulsory  exaction  of  tithes.  The  Friars,  in  return 
for  their  self-denying  and  laborious  services,  asked  only  such  alms  as 


14  ENGLISH   BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

the  charity  and  gratitude  of  the  faithful  should  bestow  freely  ;  while, 
by  the  vows  of  their  order,  they  were  forever  precluded  from  holding 
property  in  the  soil. 

It  is  not  strange  that  they  should  soon  have  won  the  entire  confi- 
dence and  affection  of  the  people.      Even  the  best  and  most  enlight- 
ened men,  who  had  long  groaned  over  the  vices  and  indolence  of  the 
clergy,  hailed  their  advent  as  the  dawn  of  a  radical  reformation  in  the 
Church.     They  found,  too  late,  that  it  was  but  sending  the  locust  to 
root  out  the  canker-worm.     What  could  be  expected  of  a  body  of 
men,  armed  by  the  infallible  Head  of  the  Church  with  an  unlimited 
commission  to  trade  in  sin,  and  responsible  for  their  lives  and  teach- 
ings to  neither  secular  nor  spiritual  power  in  the  country  where  they 
lived  ?     The  pitiable  ignorance  and  credulity  of  the  masses   invited 
imposition.      When   the  barefoot  Friar,  clad  in  his  serge  gown,  and 
weary  with  toiling  over  the  rough  and  miry  ways,  announced  in  some 
neglected  hamlet  that  he  had  come  to  offer  pardons,  indulgences,  the 
redemption  of  their  deceased  friends  from  purgatory,  and  all  the  pre- 
cious wares  of  the  Church,  at  a  price  within  the  reach  of  the  poorest 
laborer  or  beggar,  it  seemed  to  the  deluded  people  like  good  tidings 
of  great  joy.      He  could,  moreover,  by  certain  old  rags,  pigs'  bones, 
rusty  nails,  bits  of  rotten  wood,'  and  similar  rubbish  which  he  carried 
about  with  him  under  the  name  of  relics,  ensure  them  good  crops, 
and  fruitful  herds,"  and  faithful  wives,  all  for  a  very  reasonable  con- 
sideration.       His    animated    harangues,   seasoned    with    marvellous 
stories,  all  to  the  honor  and  glory  of  his  Order,  took  their  ears  captive. 
Then  he  was  so  affable,  so  condescending  !     He  was  not  too  proud  to 
sit  down  under  the  thatched  roof  and  eat  with  his  rustic  hosts,  wash- 
ing down  the  plain  fare  with  draughts  from  the  pewter  tankard,  while 
his  merry  joke  and  tale  were  the  best  sauce  of  the  feast.     He  could  ex- 
patiate,  too,   with   great  edification,  on   the  pride     and  wealth    and 
extortion   of  the   Monks   and  Priests,  who  were  lords  of  such  vast 
domains,  and  rioted  in  palaces  on  the  hard  earnings  of  the  poor.     As 
for  him,  he  demanded  nothing.     But  should  the  worthy  friends  see  fit 
to  replenish  his  empty  wallet  with  such  needfuls  as  they  could  spare 
for  the  poor  brethren,  the  saints  would  assuredly  return  the  pious  gift 
fourfold  into  their  basket  and  store.      As  a  farther  security  that  such 
bounty  should  not  lose  its  reward,  he  carefully  entered  on  his  tablets 
the  name  of  every  one  who  contributed  fish  or  bacon,  poultry,  flax  or 
wool,  for  the  community,  with  the  promise  that  he  should  be  duly 
remembered  in  their  prayers  ;  though,  as  Chaucer,  who  drew  his  pic- 
tures from  the  life,  informs  us,  the  list  was  wiped  out  without  cere- 
mony as  soon  as  his  back  was  turned  on  the  simple  donors. 


THE   PAPAL   ARMY   IN   ENGLAND.  1 5 

"  When  folk  in  church  had  gave  him  what  they  list, 
He  went  his  way,  no  longer  would  he  rest — 
With  scrip  and  tipped  staff,  ytucked  high, 
In  every  house  he  'gan  to  pore  and  pry, 
And  begged  meal  and  cheese,  or  else  corn. 
His  fellow  had  a  staff  ytipped  with  horn, 
A  pair  of  tables,  all  of  ivory, 
A  pointell  ypolished  fetously, 
And  wrote  always  the  names  as  he  stood, 
Of  all  the  folk  that  gave  them  any  good, 
Askance  that  he  would  for  them  pray  : 
'  Give  us  a  bushel  of  wheat,  malt,  or  rye, 
A  God's  Kichell,*  or  a  triffle  of  cheese, 
Or  else  what  ye  list,  I  may  not  choose, 
A  God's  halfpenny  or  a  mass  penny, 
Or  give  us  of  your  brawn,  if  ye  have  any  ; 
A  dagon  of  your  blanket,  deare  dame — 
Our  sister  deare,  lo,  here  I  write  your  name — 
Bacon  or  beef,  or  such  thing  as  ye  find.' 
A  sturdy  harlot  went  hard  aye  behind, 
That  was  their  host's  man,  and  bare  a  sack 
And  what  men  gave  him,  laid  it  on  his  back. 
And  when  he  was  out  at  the  door,  anon 
He  plained  away  the  names,  every  one 
That  he  before  had  written  in  his  tables  ; 
He  served  them  with  niffles  and  with  fables." 

This  was  the  most  successful  blow  which  had  ever  yet  been  struck 
for  the  Papacy.  Hitherto,  the  relation  between  the  clergy  and  people 
had  been  such  as  to  allow  of  a  wholesome  dislike  of  the  priesthood. 
The  faults  of  superiors  and  oppressors  are  easily  discerned  by  those 
on  whom  they  trample  ;  and  it  might  be  hoped  that  in  time  the  com- 
mon mind  would  rise  above  the  delusions  of  a  system  whose  temporal 
bondage  was  so  hard  to  bear.  But  under  this  new  form,  it  wormed 
itself  into  the  very  heart  of  the  people.  It  fell  in  with  all  their  preju- 
dices, flattered  their  vanity,  vulgarized  religion  to  their  tastes,  cheap- 
ened it  to  their  means,  and  bound  them,  heart  and  soul,  to  their 
spiritual  teachers. 

Their  special  commission,  held  directly  from  the  Pope,  rendering 
them  amenable  to  himself  alone,  gave  the  Friars  a  great  advantage. 
Under  this  all-powerful  sanction  they  ranged  from  parish  to  parish, 
from  diocese  to  diocese,  regardless  of  all  prescriptive  rights,  literally 
underselling  all  competitors,  and  crowding  them  out  of  market. 
Crime  of  every  sort,  secure  of  absolution  in  the  most  private  manner 
and  at  the  cheapest  rate,  increased  with  fearful  rapidity.     One  bishop 

*  A  little  cake. 


l6  ENGLISH   BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

complained  that  he  had  in  his  diocese  some  two  thousand  malefactors, 
of  whom  not  fourteen  had  received  absolution  from  the  parish  priests, 
who  yet  defied  punishment,  and  claimed  their  right  to  the  sacraments 
on  the  pretence  of  having  been  absolved  by  the  Friars. 

But  they  were  not  confined  to  the  poor.  Like  the  Apostle,  but  with 
a  very  different  object,  they  became  all  things  to  all  men.  They 
neglected  no  class  of  society  ;  they  had  an  eye  to  every  source  of  influ- 
ence. Many  of  them  took  high  rank  as  men  of  learning,  according  to 
the  standard  of  the  age.  Even  in  the  universities,  whose  prime  object 
was  the  education  of  the  secular  clergy,  the  Friars  gained  an  ascendency 
which  threatened  to  convert  them  into  nurseries  of  their  own  Order. 
They  increased  in  numbers  with  unparalleled  rapidity,  and  by  their 
holy  beggary  and  traffic  soon  became  enormously  rich.  Being  prohi- 
bited the  ownership  of  land,  they  invested  their  funds  in  magnificent 
churches  and  convents,  in  gold  and  silver  plate,  rich  vestments  and 
precious  stones  ;  while  the  interior  of  their  sacred  dwellings  witnessed 
excesses  not  surpassed  by  those  of  the  monastery. 

"  Round  many  a  convent's  blazing  fire 
Unhallowed  threads  of  revelry  are  spun  ; 
There  Venus  sits  disguised  like  a  Nun, — 
While  Bacchus,  clothed  in  semblance  of  a  Friar, 
Pours  out  his  choicest  beverage. 

****** 
The  arched  roof,  with  resolute  abuse 
Of  its  grave  echoes,  swells  a  choral  cheer 
Whose  votive  burden  is— Ouk  kingdom's  here  !" 

But  they  never  forgot  that  drops  make  the  ocean  ;  never  became  too 
proud  to  beg  from  the  poor.  Wickliffe  found  the  land  swarming  with 
them,  a  gross  and  sordid  pack,  still  maintaining  by  their  low  arts  all 
their  power  over  a  debased  and  cheated  people. 

The  song  of  jolly  Friar  Tuck,  in  Ivanhoe,  gives  a  lively  picture  both 
of  the  popularity  and  the  grossness  of  the  Order,  though  the  darkest 
shades  are  of  course  omitted  in  the  portrait  : 

"  The  Friar  has  walked  out,  and  where'er  he  has  gone, 
The  land  and  its  fatness  is  marked  for  his  own  ; 
He  can  roam  where  he  lists,  he  can  stop  when  he  tires, 
For  every  man's  house  is  the  Barefooted  Friar's. 

He's  expected  at  noon,  and  no  wight  till  he  comes 
May  profane  the  great  chair  and  the  porridge  of  plums; 
For  the  best  of  the  fare,  and  the  seat  by  the  fire, 
Is  the  undenied  right  of  the  Barefooted  Friar. 


THE   PAPAL  ARMY   IN   ENGLAND.  1 7 

He's  expected  at  night,  and  the  pastry's  made  hot, 
They  broach  the  brown  ale,  and  they  fill  the  black  pot  ; 
And  the  good  wife  would  wish  her  good  man  in  the  mire, 
Ere  he  lacked  a  soft  pillow,  the  Barefooted  Friar. 

Long  flourish  the  sandal,  the  cord,  and  the  cope, 
The  dread  of  the  devil  and  trust  of  the  Pope  ; 
For  t*  gather  life's  roses,  unscathed  by  the  briar, 
Is  granted  alone  to  the  Barefooted  Friar." 


All  the  resources,  whether  of  property  or  influence,  thus  accumu- 
lated by  these  immediate  proteges  and  vassals  of  the  Pope,  was  so 
much  capital  to  the  Papacy  itself.  How  rich  a  vein  of  material  wealth 
had  been  opened  to  his  Holiness  may  be  judged  of  by  the  fact,  that  in 
1299  the  Franciscans  were  able  to  offer  him  fifty  thousand  ducats  in 
gold  for  permission  to  own  land — a  petition  which  he  refused,  how- 
ever, after  quietly  pocketing  the  money.  He  would  allow  them  to 
form  no  ties  with  the  country  in  which  they  lived,  which  might  inter- 
fere with  unconditional  subserviency  to  himself.  The  increase  of  his 
direct  influence  on  all  the  internal  affairs  of  the  kingdom,  and  over 
the  mind  of  the  nation  through  their  means,  was  still  more  important. 
The  secular  clergy,  as  we  have  seen,  had  become  his  creatures  ;  the 
monasteries,  by  successive  strokes  of  policy,  had  been  withdrawn  from 
episcopal  jurisdiction,  and  made  immediately  accountable  to  himself. 
But  as  large  land  proprietors,  it  was  possible  for  exigencies  to  arise 
when  these  orders  of  the  clergy  might  prefer  the  interests  of  the  coun- 
try to  his  own.  The  system  was  made  complete  by  the  addition  of  a 
corps,  exceeding  them  both  in  number,  who  had  no  dependence  but 
his  favor,  no  ties  which  could  interfere  with  unconditional  subservi- 
ency to  himself  ;  and  whose  revenues  must  be  the  fruit  of  incessant 
activity  in  imbuing  the  popular  mind  with  attachment  to  the  Papacy. 

The  stimulus  imparted  by  their  success  to  the  whole  body  of  the 
clergy  was,  moreover,  highly  satisfactory.  All  eyes  were  turned  with 
increasing  eagerness  toward  the  great  dispenser  of  patronage.  Rome 
became  more  and  more  the  central  point  of  interest,  the  grand  mart 
of  office,  the  final  court  of  appeal  to  all  parties,  and  the  papal  treasury 
overflowed  with  the  bribes  of  rival  suitors.  Such  being  the  result,  the 
quarrels  among  his  vassals  over  the  division  of  the  spoils  at  home 
did  not  disturb  the  serenity  of  the  Head  of  the  Church. 

Nor  even  yet  had  he  exhausted  his  devices  for  governing  and  drain- 
ing England.  His  special  officers,  located  at  all  important  points  in 
the  kingdom,  held  the  double  office  of  papal  spies  and  tax-gatherers  ; 
while  his  legates  and  nuncios,  armed  with  plenipotentiary  powers,  held 


1 8  ENGLISH   BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

their  courts  over  the  heads  of  both  kings  and  bishops,  and  decided 
momentous  ecclesiastical  questions,  vitally  affecting  the  interests  of  the 
State,  by  the  simple  authority  of  the  successor  of  St.  Peter. 

By  these  various  methods,  the  Pontiff  drew  yearly  from  England 
five  times  the  amount  of  the  whole  royal  revenue  ;*  and  this  was  the 
smallest  injury  sustained  by  the  enslaved  country  from  the  unnatural 
connection. 

*  So  stated  in  the  petition  of  the  "  Good  Parliament,"  1376.      Vaughan. 


CHAPTER   III. 

COUNTER-INFLUENCES  ;    THEIR   INEFFICIENCY. 

If  now  we  inquire  for  any  counter-influences  at  work  in  England  in 
the  fourteenth  century,  we  shall  find,  at  several  points,  a  decided  hos- 
tility to  the  encroachments  of  the  Papacy.  Edward  III.  was  too 
spirited  and  ambitious  a  monarch  to  look  on  patiently,  while  so  large 
and  influential  a  body  of  his  nominal  subjects  disowned  his  authority, 
and  the  Pope  of  Rome  exercised  more  power  in  his  realm,  and  drew 
from  it  far  more  money  than  himself.  But  his  quarrel  was  not  with 
the  religion  of  the  Papacy.  He  was  jealous,  as  well  he  might  be,  of 
the  political  power  and  the  wealth  of  the  clergy.  It  chafed  him  sorely 
to  see  papal  legates  and  provisors  running  through  his  kingdom, 
draining  it  of  money,  interfering  with  his  own  government,  and  act- 
ing as  spies  to  his  enemies.*  But  there  is  little  indication  of  any 
enlightened,  generous  concern  for  the  moral  condition  of  his  people, 
or  even  for  their  temporal  welfare.  He  was  always  ready  to  grind 
them  down  to  the  last  point  of  endurance,  sparing  neither  their  prop- 
erty nor  their  blood,  in  furtherance  of  his  own  ambitious  and  selfish 
projects.  His  efforts  had  for  their  object  no  real  reformation  within 
the  Church,  nor  would  a  living,  spiritual  Christianity  have  been  wel- 
comed by  him  more  cordially  than  by  the  Pope  himself.  His  resist- 
ance was,  moreover,  too  fitful  and  capricious  to  effect  a  permanent 
change  even  in  the  outward  relations  of  England  to  the  Papacy,  being 
ever  the  first  man  to  violate  his  own  laws  when  tempted  by  some 
present  advantage.  Thus  the  odious  system  of  papal  provisions,! 
against  which  such  spirited  laws  were  enacted  by  his  authority, 
remained  nevertheless  in  full  practical  force,  because  the  king  himself 
would  still  appeal  to  the  Pope  whenever  he  could  not  otherwise  secure 
the  appointment  of  his  favorite  candidate. 

The  same  was  true  of  the  Secular  Barons  ;  though,  having  less  to 
gain  from  the  Papacy,  these  were,  in  general,  more  consistent  in  their 

*  During  his  reign  the  Papal  court  was  fixed  at  Avignon,  in  France,  and  seven 
successive  Pontiffs  were  Frenchmen. 

f  Reversionary  grants  by  the  Pope  to  benefices  not  yet  vacant,  without  refer- 
ence to  the  rights  of  the  native  legal  patrons.  The  sale  of  these  provisionary 
grants  was  a  source  of  large  income  to  the  Papal  Court. 


20  ENGLISH   BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

opposition  to  its  encroachments.  There  is  frequently  something  very 
imposing  in  the  tone  and  bearing  with  which  these  martial  nobles 
meet  the  pretensions  both  of  the  sovereign  pontiff,  and  of  their  own  des- 
potic monarchs.  Seen  through  the  magnifying  haze  of  time,  they  rise 
before  us  as  the  representatives,  in  an  age  ot  lawless  tyranny,  of  the 
great  principles  of  human  freedom.  A  closer  view  greatly  diminishes 
our  admiration.  No  king  was  ever  more  ready  than  they  to  defer  to 
the  Pope  as  the  vicegerent  of  God,  when  it  suited  their  own  purposes. 
No  king  ever  ruled  his  subjects  with  a  more  iron  hand,  than  did 
these  liberty-loving  nobles  their  dependents  and  vassals.  Magna 
Charta  itself  was  the  fruit  of  a  coalition,  formed  under  the  sanction  of 
Innocent  III.,  between  the  nobles  and  the  clergy,  for  the  twofold 
purpose  of  protecting  themselves  against  the  despotism  of  King  John, 
and  of  chastising  his  attempt  to  throw  off  the  Papal  yoke.*  Small 
would  have  been  the  gain  to  liberty,  had  not  other  influences  come  in 
to  extend  its  provisions  somewhat  beyond  the  interests  of  these 
"upper  classes."  Happily,  John  was  not  yet  brought  so  low,  but 
that  he  could  claim  the  insertion  of  certain  articles  as  distasteful  to 
the  Barons  as  theirs  were  to  him.  Happily,  they  were  not  so  strong, 
but  that  the  rich  though  despised  tradesmen  of  London  could  demand 
certain  provisions  for  their  class  as  the  price  of  their  aid.  Even 
then,  it  brought  to  the  great  body  of  the  people  no  hope  of  freedom 
or  improvement.  The  laboring  classes,  i.e.,  the  majority  of  the  Eng- 
lish people,  are  but  twice  mentioned  in  this  famous  instrument,  and 
then  it  is,  as  Henry  remarks,  "for  the  benefit  of  their  masters. "f 
Even  then  Magna  Charta,  interpreted  by  the  circumstances  of  the 
times,  was  a  guarantee  for  the  perpetual  domination  of  the  Romish 
clergy  in  England.  In  the  nobles  of  the  fourteenth  century,  we  dis- 
cover no  essential  advancement  in  moral  character  or  breadth  of 
views,  beyond  those  of  a  hundred  years  before.  Their  remonstrances 
against  Papal  oppression  take  no  higher  or  bolder  tone,  nor  would 
they  have  made  any  greater  figure  in  the  history  of  English  freedom, 
had  they  not  been  immediately  followed  by  the  labors  of  a  genuine 
reformer. 

If  we  turn  to  the  Universities,  the  sacred  schools  of  those  times,  in 
the  hope  of  finding  some  dawning  of  a  better  day,  the  same  disap- 

*  See  an  admirable  analysis  of  the  Great  Charter  in  Henry's  History,  vol.  vi. 
p.  65. 

f  The  4th  article  provides  against  "  the  waste  of  men  and  goods"  on  the  estates 
of  minors  to  the  detriment  of  the  heir  when  he  shall  come  of  age  ;  the  6th  secures 
to  a  "  villain"  his  implements  of  husbandry  against  seizure  as  payment  of  fines 
—a  practice  very  inconvenient  to  those  who  lived  by  his  labor. 


COUNTER-INFLUENCES;    THEIR  INEFFICIENCY.  21 

pointment  meets  us  here.  True,  they  were  marked  by  a  strong  feel- 
ing of  nationality,  and  an  active  jealousy  of  that  papal  influence  which 
was  exerted  so  injuriously  to  the  interests  of  the  native  clergy.  Their 
members  hated  the  Friars  as  the  emissaries  of  the  Pope,  and  their  own 
chief  rivals.  But  for  liberal  ideas,  sound  learning,  or  devoted  piety, 
the  academic  halls  of  this  period  are  searched  in  vain.  It  would  in- 
deed be  strange,  if  the  nurseries  of  the  clergy  should  have  surpassed 
in  these  respects  the  demands  of  the  Church.  The  speediest  road, 
both  to  wealth  and  clerical  preferment,  was  then  found  in  the  practice 
of  the  civil,  and  especially  the  canon  law  ;*  and  accordingly,  many 
young  candidates  for  the  ministry  spent  their  entire  term  of  Univer- 
sity study  in  fitting  themselves  to  become,  in  a  sense  not  altogether 
evangelical,  "  fishers  of  men.''  The  profession  of  medicine  being 
also  very  lucrative,  and  almost  monopolized  by  churchmen,  large 
numbers  of  the  young  clergy  became  deeply  skilled  in  the  mystery  of 
healing  as  then  understood — for  instance,  curing  small-pox  without 
scars,  by  wrapping  the  patient  in  "red  scarlet  cloth";  or  stopping 
epileptic  fits,  by  saying  Mass  over  the  patient  and  causing  his  parents 
to  fast.  For  those  of  a  speculative  turn,  there  was  the  scholastic  phi- 
losophy, with  its  abstruse  discussions  of  entities  and  non-entities,  sub- 
stances and  accidents,  substantial  forms  and  occult  qualities.  The 
Universities  could  boast  their  subtle,  sublime,  profound,  angelic,  and 
seraphic  doctors  of  theology,  who  could  discuss  through  endless  folios 
the  questions  :  "  Does  the  glorified  body  of  Christ  stand  or  sit  in 
Heaven  ?  Is  the  body  of  Christ,  which  is  eaten  in  the  sacrament, 
dressed  or  undressed  ?  Were  the  clothes  in  which  Christ  appeared  to 
his  disciples  after  his  resurrection,  real  or  only  apparent  ?  Was 
Christ  the  same  between  his  death  and  resurrection,  as  before  his 
death  and  after  his  resurrection?"  Subjects  even  more  frivolous 
and  absurd  engaged  the  attention  of  the  sharpest  intellects  of  the 
times.  Thus,  the  question  :  ' '  Whether  a  hog,  taken  to  market  with 
a  rope  tied  round  its  neck  which  is  held  at  the  other  end  by  a  man, 
is  carried  by  the  rope  or  by  the  man  ?"  was  gravely  argued  by  the 
logicians,  and  declared  insoluble,  the  reasons  on  both  sides  being  per- 
fectly balanced.  But  their  disquisitions  were  not  all  so  innocent. 
The. obscene  and  blasphemous  character  of  some  of  their  speculations 
proves  too  clearly,  that  the  foulest  moral  impurity  is  quite  compatible 
with  childish  folly. 

Such  had  been  the  general  character  of  these  "  theological  semina- 

*  The  system  of  Papal  jurisprudence  drawn  from  the  decisions  of  Popes  and 
Councils. 


22  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

ries,"  ever  since  the  Iiible  had  been  cast  aside  in  the  spiritual  instruc- 
tion of  the  people.  The  decline  of  all  liberal  and  comprehensive  cul- 
ture had  kept  pace  with  the  decline  of  the  study  of  the  Hoiy  Scrip- 
tures. The  great  Roger  Bacon  declared,  in  the  preceding  century, 
that  among  the  scholars  of  his  time,  there  were  but  three  or  four  who 
had  any  knowledge  of  Greek  or  Hebrew.  There  was,  however,  then 
to  be  found  occasionally  in  the  Universities  a  Bible  doctor  (so-called  in 
contempt  of  the  antiquated  and  unprofitable  direction  of  his  studies), 
though  it  was  difficult  for  a  teacher  so  far  behind  the  age  to  obtain 
the  use  of  a  lecture-room,  or  the  command  of  a  regular  hour,  or  to 
persuade  a  handful  of  young  men  to  listen  to  his  instructions.  But  it 
was  now  long,  since  one  of  these  fossil-specimens  of  the  past  had 
appeared  among  scholars.  Even  a  copy  of  the  Latin  Vulgate  was 
scarcely  to  be  found  at  the  Universities.  In  1353,  three  or  four 
young  Irish  priests  came  over  to  England  to  study  divinity  ;  but  were 
obliged  to  return  home  "  because  not  a  copy  of  the  Bible  was  to  be 
found  at  Oxford."  The  morals  of  these  schools,  frequented  yearly 
by  many  thousands  of  English  youths,  were  not  a  whit  superior  to 
their  learning.  Frequent  allusions  occur,  in  the  records  of  the  time, 
to  the  fearful  prevalence  of  the  most  debasing  vices,  among  both 
teachers  and  students. 

In  glancing  along  the  course  of  English  history,  from  the  Conquest 
to  the  middle  of  the  fourteenth  century,  one  fact  strikes  the  attentive 
reader  with  peculiar  force.  During  that  whole  period,  we  do  not 
perceive  the  development,  in  the  life  of  society,  of  a  single  radically 
new  idea.  Several  truly  great  men  had  sat  on  the  English  throne  ; 
the  English  Church  had  given  birth  to  scholars,  theologians,  and 
statesmen  of  no  mean  rank.  Nor  was  it  destitute  of  yet  nobler 
names,  shining  with  the  lustre  of  personal  piety  and  zeal  for  religion, 
amid  the  thick  moral  darkness.  But  they  all  drift  with  the  powerful 
current,  which  set  in  with  William  I.  and  his  Anglo-Norman  church. 
Their  attempts  to  remedy  existing  evils  are  superficial  and  fragment- 
ary, utterly  ineffectual  to  arrest  the  mighty  onward  tide  of  priestly 
domination  and  corruption.  Much  is  vaguely  asserted  respecting  the 
progress  of  civil  liberty  during  this  period.  The  courts  of  law 
attained,  it  is  said,  a  theoretical  perfection  in  the  time  of  Edward  III. 
which  has  scarcely  been  surpassed.  But  if  we  look  at  the  actual  con- 
dition of  the  people  in  the  fourteenth  century,  we  see  little  that 
deserves  the  name  of  progress.  Violence  and  bribery  everywhere 
overawed  or  corrupted  justice.  "  There  was  not,"  we  are  told,  "  so 
much  as  one  of  the  king's  ministers  and  judges  who  did  not  receive 


COUNTER-INFLUENCES  ;    THEIR   INEFFICIENCY.  23 

bribes,  and  very  few  who  did  not  extort  them."*  Perjury  was  a  vice 
so  universal,  that  the  words  of  scripture  might  have  found  an  almost 
literal  application  to  the  English  people,  from  the  king  to  the  serf — 
"  All  men  are  liars."  Life  and  property  were  kept  in  perpetual 
insecurity,  by  the  numerous  and  ferocious  bands  of  robbers  which 
roamed  over  the  country,  under  the  protection  of  powerful  baron?, 
who  sheltered  them  in  their  castles,  and  shared  with  them  their 
booty.  Englishmen  and  Englishwomen  were  still  sold  like  cattle  at 
the  great  fairs.  Crossness  of  manners  characterized  all  ranks,  and 
exhibited  itself  in  the  most  revolting  forms  of  licentiousness  among 
the  leading  classes.  "  Like  priest,  like  people,"  was  never  more  fully 
verified  than  in  this  portion  of  English  history. f 

The  recognition  of  the  right  of  burgher  representation,  in  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  House  of  Commons,  has  been  appealed  to,  as  the 
beginning  of  the  England  that  now  is.  "But  what  was  this,  in  reality, 
but  a  mere  extension  of  the  old  idea  that  "  might  makes  right,"  the 
recognition  of  a  new  potency,  in  addition  to  that  of  the  stronger  arm, 
viz.,  the  potency  of  property  ?  A  great  and  glorious  advance  it 
indeed  was.  over  the  reign  of  brute  force  !  But  it  did  not  spring 
from  the  root  of  true  liberty.  The  idea  of  man,  with  his  inborn 
inalienable  rights — now  the  characteristic  idea  of  the  Anglo-Saxon 
race — had  never  then  dawned  on  the  English  mind.  When,  in  1381, 
a  hundred  thousand  English  laborers  came  up  to  London,  with  the 
humble  request  that  they  might  become  men,  they  met  in  no  class 
with  less  sympathy  than  among  the  free  commoners. — When  Richard 
II.  announced  to  parliament,  at  its  next  session,  that  he  had  revoked 
the  charters  of  freedom  with  which  he  had  deluded  his  poor  subjects, 
the  House  of  Commons  expressed  its  cordial  approbation  of  the  cruel 
fraud,  and  declared  that  they  would  never  give  their  assent  to  the 
abolition  of  serfdom,  "  though  it  were  to  save  themselves  from  all 
perishing  in  a  day."  It  was  the  House  of  Commons  too,  who  peti- 
tioned at  a  still  later  period,  that  serfs  might  not  be  permitted  to  send 
their  children  to  school — "  and  this  for  the  honor  and  glory  of  all  the 
freemen  of  the  realm  !"  And  the  majority  of  Englishmen,  be  it 
remembered,  were  then  serfs,  or  in  a  state  of  civil  disability  scarcely 
above  that  of  absolute  slaves  of  the  soil. 

*  Henry,  vol.  viii.,  384. 

f  This  picture  may  seem  too  dark  for  truth  ;  but  the  reader  will  find  it  fully 
borne  out  by  the  histories  of  the  time.  See,  particularly,  Henry's  History,  vols. 
v.,  vi.,  viii.,  and  x.  The  showy  virtues  of  chivalry,  the  portraiture  of  which,  by 
novelists  and  poets,  has  made  this  period  so  dear  to  the  fancy,  are  by  no  means 
inconsistent  with  the  vices  here  depicted. 


24  ENGLISH   BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

Allowing,  then,  the  utmost  that  can  reasonably  be  claimed  for  the 
progress  of  freedom,  there  was  as  yet  no  sign  presaging  England's 
glorious  future  ;  nothing  to  which  we  can  look  back  and  say  :  Here 
was  the  earnest  of  her  great  destiny  !  In  the  nature  of  the  case, 
there  could  not  be.  Of  civil  liberty  in  its  true  and  noblest  sense — 
that  which  embraces  in  its  protecting  arms  the  whole  people,  and 
allows  full  scope  to  the  development  of  the  individual  as  a  moral  and 
social  being — of  this  the  world  has  seen  no  example,  where  a  State 
religion  holds  the  consciences  of  men  in  blind  subjection  to  the  priest- 
hood, and  denies  the  Bible  to  the  common  people. 


CHAPTER    IV. 


THE    BIBLE-APOSTLE. 


Such  was  the  gloomy  and  almost  hopeless  scene  presented  by  Eng- 
land, when  there  appeared  on  the  stage  a  teacher  of  religion,  whose 
whole  life  and  opinions  had  their  source  in  the  teachings  of  the  Bible. 

How  Wickliffe  had  come  into  possession  of  the  Bible,  at  a  time 
when  it  was  an  unknown  book  to  the  great  body  of  the  clergy  as  well 
.as  laity,  and  was  wholly  ignored  in  "  the  course  of  theological  study" 
at  Oxford,  history  does  not  inform  us.  His  first  discovery  of  the 
treasure  might  reveal  a  religious  experience  no  less  affecting,  a  provi- 
dential guidance  no  less  striking,  than  in  the  case  of  Luther.  Per- 
chance the  earnest  student,  urged  by  an  inward  want  which  found 
little  satisfaction  in  the  dry  and  frivolous  discussions  of  the  lecture- 
room,  was  rummaging  those  old  chests  in  the  crypt  of  St.  Mary's,* 
when  the  beautifully  written  and  illuminated  Biblia  Sacra  caught  his 
eye.  With  the  first  glance  at  the  strange  words  of  life  and  truth,  how 
would  the  monkish  legends  and  the  musty  disquisitions  of  the  senten- 
tiaries  be  forgotten  ;  and  hour  after  hour  glide  away  unnoted  amid 
those  dim  old  vaults,  while  the  enchained  reader  bent,  torch  in  hand, 
over  the  page  of  inspiration  !  This  indeed  is  but  fancy.  But  it  *s  no 
mere  fancy  that  Wickliffe  found  a  Bible  ;  and  that  he  pored  over  it  so 
long  and  earnestly,  and  with  such  fervent  prayer  to  God,  that  it  be- 
came to  him  the  source  of  a  new  spiritual  existence,  and  the  guiding 
star  of  his  destiny. 

Those  beautiful  words  uttered  in  one  of  his  sermons  at  Lutterworth, 
might  fitly  serve  as  the  motto  of  his  whole  subsequent  career  :  "  Oh 
Christ  !  thy  law  is  hidden  in  the  sepulchre  ;  when  wilt  thou  send  thy 
angel  to  remove  the  stone,  and  show  thy  truth  unto  thy  flock  !" 

It  is  not  within  the  scope  of  this  sketch,  to  portray  in  detail  Wick- 
liffe's  successive  labors  as  a  Reformer.  These  will  only  be  briefly 
mentioned,  as  indicating  the  path  by  which  he  was  conducted  to  his 
last  and  crowning  work  ;  that  work,  without  which  all  his  previous 
efforts  would  have  proved  like  inscriptions  on  the  sand — the  restor- 
ation of  the  Bible  to  the  common  people. 

*  At  this  time  the  library  of  Oxford  was  kept  in  a  few  chests  under  St.  Mary's 
Church. 


26  ENGLISH   BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

OPPOSES     THE     MENDICANTS. 

His  first  conflict  was  with  the  Friars,  about  the  year  1360  ;  who, 
having  succeeded  by  the  help  of  the  Pope  in  thrusting  themselves  into 
important  offices  in  the  University,  were  exerting  a  most  baneful  in- 
fluence on  its  students,  inducing  great  numbers  of  them  to  take  the 
vows  of  their  Order.  He  had  also  had  ample  opportunities  of  observ- 
ing their  abominable  lives,  and  the  arts  by  which  they  practised  on 
the  credulity  of  the  lower  classes.  No  doubt  they  had  many  times 
before  provoked  his  stern  rebuke.  But  the  long-felt  indignation  now 
kindles  into  the  Reformer's  zeal.  He  feels  in  himself  the  summons  to 
come  forth  and  do  battle  for  the  truth. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  the  standpoint  of  Wickliffe  in  this,  the  initia- 
tive step  of  his  career  as  a  reformer.  We  have  indeed  nothing  from 
his  pen  which  can  be  assigned  to  the  exact  date  of  this  controversy  ; 
but  his  writings  on  the  same  subject,  which  have  been  preserved, 
sufficiently  indicate  his  position.  Grostete,  Armichanus,  and  other 
great  and  good  men  of  the  English  Church,  had  severely  censured  the 
immoralities  of  the  Friars.  Wickliffe  depicts  their  atrocious  practices 
with  a  still  more  fearless  hand. — But  he  goes  much  farther  than  this. 
He  strikes  at  the  root  of  the  evil.  In  his  view,  their  system,  from  the 
foundation  upward,  is  a  lie  ;  their  very  existence,  high  treason  to  Him 
who  has  revealed  in  the  Scriptures  the  most  perfect  law  of  faith  and 
life.  The  Friars  had  put  forth  the  bold  claim,  that  their  religion  took 
precedence,  in  dignity  and  merit,  of  the  religion  of  Christ.  Accord- 
ing to  them,  there  had  been  three  dispensations  ;  the  first,  contained 
in  the  Old  Testament,  proceeding  from  the  Father  ;  the  second,  that 
of  the  New,  proceeding  from  the  Son  ;  and  finally,  "  the  everlasting 
gospel,"  proclaimed  by  the  angel  in  the  Apocalypse  (who  was  no 
other  than  St.  Francis,  the  founder  of  their  Order),  which  was,  of 
course,  to  supersede  every  other. 

The  reasoning  by  which  Wickliffe  meets  this  assumption  shows 
how  firmly  he  had  anchored  himself  on  the  revealed  word.  The  relig- 
ion of  Christ,  he  argues,  must  be  most  perfect,  inasmuch  as  its 
founder  is  most  perfect.  To  charge  him  with  not  teaching  the  best 
religion,  is  to  charge  him  with  want,  either  of  the  highest  wisdom  or 
the  highest  love.  It  is  also  most  perfect  in  its  rule  of  life,  being 
purely  divine,  without  mixture  of  human  error.  It  is  most  perfect  in 
the  example  which  it  furnishes,  since  Christ  and  his  apostles  "  be 
chief  knights  thereof."  It  is  most  perfect  in  the  freedom  of  its  ser- 
vice, as  it  "  standeth  in  all  love  and  freedom  of  heart,  bidding  nothing 
but  what  is  reasonable  and   profitable,  and   Christ  himself  declares  : 


THE   BIBLE-APOSTLE.  2J 

'  My  yoke  is  easy  and  my  burden  is  light.'  "  But  the  Friars  pretend- 
ed that  their  works  of  merit  far  exceeded  the  demands  of  Christ. 
"  Can  any  man,"  asks  Wickliffe,  "  more  than  fulfill  that  first  and  great 
command,  to  love  God  with  all  the  heart,  all  the  mind  and  all  the 
strength,  and  his  neighbor  as  himself?"  Then  cannot  any  man  ex- 
ceed the  demands  of  Christ's  religion.  He,  therefore,  who  pretends  to 
amend  Christ's  religion  in  fact  denies  it,  and  is  an  apostate  from  the 
faith.  But  the  point  of  most  significance,  for  its  reference  to  his 
future  career,  is  found  in  his  contrast  between  the  Friar's  religion  and 
that  of  Christ,  in  respect  to  the  sanction  under  which  they  respectively 
claim  belief.  "Christ's  religion,"  he  says,  "is  most  true,  because 
confirmed  of  God  and  not  of  sinful  men  ;  and  because  by  it  the  Pope 
and  every  other  man  must  be  confirmed,  or  else  he  shall  be  damned  ; 
while  the  new  Orders,  being  confirmed  only  by  the  Pope,  may  turn 
out  to  have  been  confirmed  by  a  devil." 

Thus,  in  this  first  attack  on  the  errors  of  the  age,  Wickliffe  struck 
the  key-note  of  all  his  future  labors. 

SUMMONED     TO     PARLIAMENT. 

So  bold  an  assault  on  this  powerful  body  could  not  fail  to  provoke 
their  mortal  enmity.  But  it  also  fixed  on  him  the  favorable  attention 
of  those  who  were  jealous  of  the  political  power  of  the  Pope  and 
clergy.  In  1365  he  was  present  at  the  parliament  to  which  Edward 
III.  submitted  the  demand  of  Urban  V.  for  the  renewal  of  King 
John's  tribute  ;  *  and,  from  the  circumstances,  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  he  had  been  invited  to  London  to  aid  the  resisting  party  by  his 
counsels.  That  he  was  one  of  its  acknowledged  leaders,  is  seen  in  the 
fact,  that  soon  after  Parliament's  indignant  repudiation  of  the  papal 
claim,  he  was  challenged  by  name,  in  a  violent  anonymous  tract  on 
the  subject  ;  and  that  he  responded  to  the  call,  as  one  whose  right 
and  duty  it  was  to  speak  in  the  case.  From  his  reply,  we  learn  the 
considerations  which  had  influenced  the  decision  of  Parliament  ;  and 
from  their  general  correspondence  to  his  own  views,  expressed  else- 
where, it  can  hardly  be  doubted  that  they  were,  for  the  most  part,  first 
borrowed  from  his  own  mind.  Here,  also,  we  observe  the  same 
reference  to  the  teachings  and  authority  of  the  Scriptures.  The 
Pope,  he  argues,  cannot  claim,  as  the  representative  of  Christ,  any- 
thing beyond  what  Christ  claimed  for  himself.     But  Christ's  office  was 

*  Urban  required,  not  only  the  thousand  marks  yearly,  as  promised  by  John, 
but  the  payment  of  all  arrearages,  principal  and  interest,  for  the  previous  thirty 
years  ;  in  default  of  which,  the  king  was  cited  to  appear  before  the  pontiff,  and 
answer  for  his  conduct  as  to  his  feudal  lord. 


28  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

purely  spiritual  ;  he  refused  all  secular  dominion  ;  nay,  so  far  was  he 
from  exercising  temporal  lordship,  that  he  subsisted  on  charity,  and 
had  not  whereto  lay  his  head.  He  concludes,  therefore,  that  England 
owes  no  civil  allegiance  to  the  Pope,  and  may  properly  repel  his 
aggressions  upon  her  temporal  sovereignty.  On  the  same  general 
ground  he  maintained  also,  that  the  secular  possessions  of  the  clergy 
are  held  on  the  same  tenure  with  that  of  the  other  subjects  of  the 
realm,  and  are  liable  to  control,  or  if  abused,  to  forfeiture  by  the  secu- 
lar powers  which  first  bestowed  them  ;  and  in  all  civil  cases,  the  per- 
sons of  ecclesiastics  should,  as  in  the  case  of  the  laity,  be  subject  to 
the  civil  courts.  In  this,  he  struck  at  that  grand  prerogative  of  the 
clergy,  for  which  Lanfranc,  Ahselm,  Becket,  and  a  long  line  of  popish 
heroes  had  waged  deadly  warfare  with  their  sovereigns. 

In  137 1,  we  find  his  name  connected  with  a  parliamentary  move- 
ment for  an  additional  reform  in  respect  to  the  clergy,  viz.:  their  ex- 
clusion from  secular  offices.  Their  monopoly  of  all  places  of  honor 
and  profit  in  the  State,  joined  to  their  ecclesiastical  power,  had  given 
them  a  most  dangerous  preponderance  in  the  government  ;  and  yet, 
strange  to  say,  Wickliffe  seems  to  have  been  the  first  who  questioned 
their  perfect  right  to  it.  He  indeed  opposed  this  admixture  of  the 
spiritual  and  temporal  on  purely  religious  grounds.  Such  a  coalition 
was,  in  his  view,  incompatible  with  the  New  Testament  conception  of 
the  sanctity  and  high  responsibility  of  the  sacred  office.  "  He  that 
warreth,  entangleth  not  himself  with  this  life,"  was  his  favorite  axiom 
on  that  subject.  He  complains  that  "  prelates  and  great  religious 
possessioners,  are  so  occupied  in  heart  about  worldly  lordships  and 
pleas  of  business,  that  no  habit  of  devotion,  of  praying,  of  thoughtful- 
ness  on  heavenly  things,  on  the  sins  of  their  own  hearts  or  those  of 
other  men,  may  be  preserved  ;  neither  are  they  found  studying  and 
preaching  the  Gospel,  nor  visiting  and  comforting  of  poor  men." 
These  are  the  reasons  for  which  he  concludes,  that  "  neither  prelates 
nor  doctors,  priests  nor  deacons,  should  hold  secular  offices."  But 
the  doctrine  thus  first  suggested  from  a  religious  point  of  view,  was 
eagerly  caught  up  by  the  laity  for  its  political  application,  and  was 
made  the  subject  of  one  of  the  most  important  memorials  submitted  to 
Parliament  during  this  eventful  reign. 

PRO  F  KSSDR     AT     OXFORD. 

The  following  year  he  received  his  degree  of  Doctor  in  Theology, 
and  commenced  a  course  of  divinity  lectures  at  Oxford.  The  strong 
impression  immediately  created  in  the  University  is  not  surprising. 
By  the  testimony  of  Knyghton,  a  man  well  qualified  to  judge  in  such 


THE   BIBLE-APOSTLE.  29 

matters,  and  withal  a  bitter  opponent  of  Wickliffe's  doctrines,  he  was 
"  as  a  theologian,  the  most  eminent  of  his  time  ;  in  philosophy,  second 
to  none  ;  as  a  schoolman,  incomparable."  And  again  :  "  No  man 
excelled  him  in  the  strength  and  number  of  his  arguments  ;  and  he 
excelled  all  men  in  the  irresistible  power  of  his  eloquence. "  Walden, 
another  of  his  inveterate  enemies,  confessed  in  a  letter  to  Pope  Martin 
V.,  that  he  had  often  stood  amazed  beyond  measure  at  the  excellence 
of  his  learning,  the  boldness  of  his  assertions,  the  exactness  of  his 
authorities,  and  the  strength  of  his  arguments."  But  his  mastery  of 
scholastic  lore  was  not  the  secret  of  his  power.  It  was  the  living  in- 
fluence of  a  spirit,  which,  having  drunk  deeply  at  the  fountain  of 
Eternal  Truth,  yearned  to  lead  others  thither  also.  Casting  aside  the 
absurd  speculations  and  sophistries  which  they  had  been  wont  to  hear 
from  the  Professor's  chair,  he  reasoned  with  his  pupils  on  such  themes 
as  the  being,  nature,  and  attributes  of  God  ;  the  immortality  of  the 
soul,  its  faculties  and  affections  ;  the  essential  nature  of  sin  and  of 
holiness.  Nor  did  he  content  himself  with  abstract  truth.  In  the 
lecture-room  he  was  still  the  practical  reformer.  Thus  from  the  con- 
sideration of  the  nature  of  sin,  he  proceeds  to  the  conclusion,  that  the 
distinction  between  mortal  and  venial  sin,  "  about  which  the  prelates 
babble  so  much,"  is  a  mere  priestly  contrivance  for  making  gain  ; 
that  the  doctrine  of  priestly  absolution  and  indulgence  is  an  impious 
invasion  of  the  prerogatives  of  God,  who  is  alone  able  to  forgive  sin. 
The  great  churchmen  who  were  so  free  with  their  dispensations,  were, 
in  his  bold  language,  "  blasphemers  of  the  wisdom  of  God,  pretend- 
ing in  their  avarice  and  folly,  to  understand  what  they  know  not  ; 
sensual  simonists,  who  chatter  on  the  subject  of  grace  as  if  it  were 
something  to  be  bought  and  sold  like  an  ox  or  an  ass."  Saint-wor- 
ship had  at  this  time  almost  supplanted  the  worship  of  God,  and  had 
substituted,  for  the  one  Mediator,  a  countless  army  of  intercessors  in 
the  Saints  of  the  Romish   Calendar.*     The  following  extract  shows 

*  A  striking  exemplification  of  this  tendency  is  seen  in  the  case  of  Thomas 
Becket,  that  bold,  bad  man,  who  had  been  canonized  by  the  Romish  Church  as  a 
martyr,  and  thereafter  reigned  for  centuries  as  the  chief  English  Saint.  His 
shrine  in  Canterbury  Cathedral  was  enriched  with  offerings  of  astonishing  mag- 
nificence and  value,  and  every  fifty  years  a  jubilee  in  his  honor  drew  together  an 
innumerable  company  of  pilgrims.  At  the  fifth  jubilee,  in  1420,  the  concourse  is 
said  to  have  amounted  to  100,000  persons.  "  The  devotion  towards  him  had 
quite  effaced  in  that  place  the  adoration  of  the  Deity  :  nay,  even  that  of  the 
Virgin.  At  God's  altar,  for  instance,  there  were  offered  in  one  year  three 
pounds,  two  shillings  and  sixpence  ;  at  the  Virgin's,  sixty-three  pounds,  five 
shillings  and  sixpence  ;  at  St. Thomas',  eight  hundred  and  thirtv-two  pounds, 
twelve  shillings  and  threepence.      But  the  next  year  the  disproportion  was  still 


$0  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

how  Wickliffe,  even  thus  early  in  his  public  career,  had  risen  above 
the  superstitions  of  his  age  :  "  Whoever  entreats  a  saint,  should  direct 
his  prayer  to  Christ  as  God,  not  to  the  special  Saint,  but  to  Christ. 
Nor  doth  the  celebration  or  festival  of  a  saint  avail  anything,  except 
in  so  far  as  it  may  tend  to  magnify  Christ,  inciting  us  to  honor  him, 
and  increasing  our  love  to  him.  If  there  be  any  celebration  in  honor 
of  the  saints,  which  is  not  kept  within  these  limits,  it  is  to  be  ascribed, 
without  doubt,  to  cupidity,  or  some  other  evil  motive.  Hence,  not  a 
few  think  it  would  be  well  for  the  Church,  if  all  festivals  of  that  nature 
were  abolished,  and  those  only  retained  which  had  respect  immedi- 
ately to  Christ.  For  then,  they  say,  the  memory  of  Christ  would  be 
kept  more  freshly  in  the  mind,  and  the  devotions  of  the  common  peo- 
ple would  not  be  unduly  distributed  among  the  members  of  Christ. 
For  the  Scriptures  assure  us  that  Christ  is  the  Mediator  be- 
tween God  and  man."  Freedom  of  religious  opinion,  and  the  right 
of  private  judgment,  are  distinctly  vindicated  in  these  lectures. 
"  Christ,"  says  he,  "  wished  his  law  to  be  observed  willingly,  freely, 
that  in  such  obedience  men  might  find  happiness.  Hence  he  appointed 
no  civil  punishment  to  be  inflicted  on  transgressors  of  his  commandments, 
but  left  them  to  a  punishment  more  severe,  that  would  come  after  the 
day  of  judgment."  Human  tradition  he  set  aside  as  of  no  account  in 
matters  of  religion.  "  If  there  be  any  truth,"  he  says,  "it  is  in  the 
Scripture  ;  and  there  is  no  truth  to  be  found  in  the  schools,  that  may 
not  be  found  in  more  excellence  in  the  Bible." 

Even  those  who  were  attached  to  the  person  and  opinions  of  Wick- 
liffe were  alarmed  at  his  boldness.  They  begged  him  to  remember, 
when  thus  exposing  himself  to  the  wrath  of  the  great  "  satraps  of  the 
Church,"  that  his  appeal  to  the  Scriptures  for  the  truth  of  his  views 
would  be  of  little  avail,  in  a  time  when  the  Scriptures  themselves  were 
of  no  authority.  "Without  doubt,"  he  replied,  "what  you  say  is 
true.  The  chief  cause  of  the  existing  state  of  things  is  our  want  of 
faith  in  the  Holy  Scriptures.  Wre  do  not  sincerely  believe  in  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ,  or  we  should  abide  by  the  authority  of  his  word,  espe- 
cially of  the  Evangelists,  as  of  infinitely  greater  weight  than  every 
other.  It  is  the  will  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  that  the  books  of  the  Old  and 
New  Law  should  be  read  and  studied,  as  the  one  sufficient  source  of 
instruction  ;  and  that  men  should  not  be  taken  up  with  other  books, 
which,  true  as  they  may  be,  and  even  containing  scripture  truth,  an; 

greater  :  there  was  not  a  penny  offered  at  God's  altar  ;  the  Virgin-*  gained  only 
four  pounds,  one  shilling  and  eightpence  ;  but  St.  Thomas  had  got  for  his  share 
nine  hundred  and  fifty-four  pounds,  six  shillings  and  threepence."  Hume's  Eng- 
land, quoted  from  ed.  1796,  in  Eng.  Reformers,  vol.  i.,  p.  52. 


THE   BIBLE-APOSTLE.  3 1 

not  to  be  confided  in  without  caution  and  limitation.  Hence  Augus- 
tine often  enjoins  it  on  his  readers,  not  to  place  any  faith  in  his  word 
or  writings,  except  so  far  as  they  have  their  foundation  in  Scripture. 
Of  course  we  should  judge  thus  of  the  writings  of  other  holy  doctors  ; 
much  more  of  the  writings  of  the  Roman  Church  and  her  doctors,  in 
these  later  times.  If  we  follow  this  rule,  the  Scriptures  will  be  held 
in  becoming  reverence.  The  papal  bulls  will  be  superseded,  as  they 
ought  to  be.  The  veneration  of  men  for  the  laws  of  the  papacy,  as 
well  as  for  the  opinions  of  our  modern  doctors,  which,  since  the  loos- 
ing of  Satan,  they  have  been  so  free  to  promulgate,  will  be  restrained 
within  due  limits.  What  concern  have  the  faithful  with  writings  of 
this  sort,  except  as  they  are  honestly  deduced  from  the  fountain  of 
Scripture  ?  By  such  a  course,  we  can  not  only  reduce  the  mandates  of 
popes  and  prelates  to  their  proper  place,  but  the  errors  of  these  new 
religions  might  be  corrected,  and  the  worship  of  Christ  well  purified 
and  exalted." 

Such  were  the  doctrines — and  what  other  than  these  were  "  the 
glorious  doctrines  of  the  Reformation"  ? — which  Wickliffe,  two  centu- 
ries before  Luther,  taught  openly  in  the  halls  of  Oxford.  Here  he 
strove  to  raise  up,  from  the  flower  of  the  rising  clergy,  a  corps  of  de- 
voted spirits  who  should  be  prepared,  in  the  conflict  which  he  foresaw 
as  inevitable,  to  do  battle  for  the  truth.  The  high  moral  enthusiasm 
which  inspired  words  like  the  following,  must  have  been  like  an  enkin- 
dling flame  to  their  young  hearts  :  "  All  Christians,"  thus  he  ad- 
dresses them,  "  should  be  the  soMiers  of  Christ.  But  it  is  plain  that 
many  are  chargeable  with  great  neglect  of  this  duty  ;  being  prevented 
by  fear  of  the  loss  of  temporal  goods  and  worldly  friendships,  and  ap- 
prehensive about  life  and  fortune,  from  faithfully  setting  forth  the  cause 
of  God,  from  standing  manfully  in  its  defence,  and  if  need  be,  from 
suffering  death  in  its  behalf.  From  the  like  source  comes  that  subter- 
fuge of  Satan,  argued  by  some  of  our  modern  hypocrites,  that  it  can- 
not be  a  duty  now,  as  in  the  primitive  Church,  to  suffer  martyrdom, 
since  in  our  time  the  great  majority  of  men  being  believers,  there  are 
none  to  persecute  Christ  to  the  death  in  his  members.  But  this  is, 
without  doubt,  a  device  of  Satan  to  shield  sin.  For  the  believer,  in 
maintaining  the  law  of  Christ,  should  be  prepared,  as  his  soldier,  to 
endure  all  things  at  the  hands  of  the  satraps  of  this  world  ;  declaring 
boldly  to  Pope  and  Cardinals,  to  Bishops  and  Prelates,  how  unjustly, 
according  to  the  teaching  of  the  Gospel,  they  serve  God  in  their 
offices,  subjecting  those  committed  to  their  care  to  great  injury  and 
peril,  such  as  must  bring  on  them  speedy  destruction.  All  this  ap- 
plies, indeed,  to  temporal  lords,  but  not  in  so  great  a  degree  as  to 


32  ENGLISH   BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

the  clergy  ;  for  as  the  abomination  of  desolation  begins  with  a  per- 
verted clergy,  so  the  consolation  begins  with  a  converted  clergy. 
Hence  we  Christians  need  not  visit  pagans  to  convert  them,  by  endur- 
ing martyrdom  in  their  behalf  ;  we  have  only  to  declare  with  constancy 
the  word  of  God  before  Caesarean  Prelates,  and  straight-way  the  flower 
of  martyrdom  will  be  ready  to  our  hand  /" 

VVickliffe  did  not  think  it  sufficient  to  sow  the  good  seed  among 
the  clergy  alone.  While  engaged  in  his  duties  as  Professor,  he 
preached  on  the  Sabbath  to  promiscuous  auditories,  in  the  mother 
tongue,  the  same. great  truths  which  he  taught  to  his  students  during 
the  week  ;  and  in  the  intervals  of  academic  duty,  he  gave  himself  to 
the  work  which  he  loved  above  all  others — that  of  Christian  preacher 
and  pastor,  in  the  rectory  of  Fyllingham.  More  than  three  hundred 
of  his  pastoral  sermons,  more  or  less  complete,  remain  as  witnesses  of 
his  zeal  and  fidelity  as  a  religious  teacher  of  the  common  people,  and 
not  less  of  the  evangelical  purity  of  his  doctrines. 

Thus  passed  two  laborious,  but  peaceful,  years  of  Wickliffe's  life. 
In  favor  with  the  court,  for  the  stand  which  he  had  taken  against  the 
Pope,  and  with  the  university,  for  his  zeal  against  the  Friars  ;  honored 
for  his  genius,  his  learning,  and  his  virtuous  life,  he  was  at  this  time 
regarded  as  the  chief  light  and  ornament  of  Oxford.  Thus,  in  the 
providence  of  God,  time  was  afforded  for  his  principles  to  become 
known  and  to  take  root  in  many  minds.  We  now  turn  a  new  leaf  in 
his  history. 


CHAPTER  A'. 

THE    POPE    AND    BISHOPS    IN    THE    FIELD. 

In  1372,  a  royal  commission  had  been  sent  to  Avignon,  to  remon- 
strate with  the  Pope  against  the  sale  of  English  benefices,  which  was 
still  prosecuted  on  the  largest  scale.  When  the  embassy  returned 
without  having  accomplished  anything,  and  Parliament  resolved  to 
repeat  the  attempt  more  vigorously,  Wickliffe  "was  summoned  by 
royal  authority  from  Oxford,  to  join  the  new  commission.  That 
he  should  have  been  selected  for  such  a  purpose,  is  a  striking  proof  of 
the  weight  attached  to  his  opinions  and  personal  character.  But  this 
second  effort  resulted  no  better  than  the  first.  After  two  years  spent 
in  wearisome  and  fruitless  negotiations,  Wickliffe  returned  to  Eng- 
land,  thoroughly  disgusted  with  the  duplicity  and  corruption  of  the 
Papal  court,*  and  fully  convinced  that  no  reformation  was  to  be 
hoped  for  from  this  quarter  ;  that  if  England  wished  to  save  her  civil 
and  religious  liberties  from  swift  and  utter  destruction,  she  must  look 
for  rescue  elsewhere  than  to  the  Head  of  the  Church.  His  bold  ex- 
posures and  appeals  were,  without  doubt,  the  moving  spring  of  those 
energetic  measures  of  reform  in  the  House  of  Commons,  which  fol- 
lowed his  return  from  Bruges. 

But  they  had  other  results.  A  few  months  after  his  return  (early 
in  February,  1377),  the  ecclesiastical  parliament  held  its  session  in 
London  ;  and  one  of  its  first  matters  of  business  was  to  receive  accusa- 

*  Wickliffe  and  his  associates  were  not  allowed  to  proceed  to  Avignon,  but 
were  met  by  the  papal  commissioners  at  Bruges.  In  the  following  letter  of  Pe- 
trarch, written  from  Avignon  while  it  was  the  seat  of  the  papal  court,  we  may  find 
a  sufficient  reason  why  the  sturdy  assailant  of  the  vices  of  the  clergy  should  not 
have  been  allowed  a  nearer  approach  to  his  Holiness. — "  You  imagine,"  says  he, 
"  that  the  city  of  Avignon  is  the  same  now  as  when  you  resided  in  it.  No  !  it  is 
quite  different.  True,  it  was  then  the  worst  and  vilest  place  on  earth  ;  but  it  is 
now  a  terrestrial  hell,  a  residence  of  fiends  and  devils,  a  receptacle  of  all  that  is 
most  wicked  and  abominable.  What  I  tell  you  is  not  from  hearsay,  but  from 
my  own  knowledge  and  experience.  In  this  city  there  is  no  piety,  no  reverence 
or  fear  of  God,  no  faith  or  charity,  nothing  that  is  holy,  just,  equitable,  or 
humane.  Why  should  I  speak  of  truth,  when  not  only  the  houses,  palaces, 
courts,  churches,  and  the  thrones  of  Popes  and  Cardinals,  but  the  very  earth  and 
air,  seem  to  teem  with  lies  ?  A  future  state,  heaven,  hell,  and  judgment,  are 
openly  turned  into  ridicule,  as  childish  fables." — Henrys  History. 


34  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

tions  against  John  Wickliffe,  "  as  a  person  holding  and  promulgating 
many  erroneous  and  heretical  opinions."  The  nineteenth  of  the  same 
month  was  fixed  on  for  his  trial,  and  a  summons  dispatched  to  Oxford 
requiring  his  presence  at  the  time  and  place  appointed.  To  us,  who 
look  back  upon  this  movement  through  the  subsequent  developments 
of  history,  it  seems  an  event  of  no  little  interest  and  importance.  It 
was  the  first  war-cry  of  the  enemy  ;  the  signal  for  that  battle  which 
was  to  bathe  the  soil  of  England  with  the  blood  of  her  noblest  sons 
and  daughters,  and  was  never  to  cease  till  the  Bible  and  its  principles 
should  become  triumphant  over  the  hosts  of  darkness  and  error. 

Wickliffe  did  not  shrink  from  the  conflict,  which  he  must  have  long 
foreseen.  He  immediately  came  down  to  London,  prepared  to  meet 
the  charges  of  his  enemies  with  the  weapons  of  scripture  truth.  But 
it  was  well  understood,  that  these  were  of  little  account  in  the  "  holy 
convocation"  before  which  he  was  to  answer  ;  and  two  of  his  power- 
ful court  friends — John,  Duke  of  Lancaster,  fourth  son  of  Edward 
III.,  and  Percy,  Earl  Marshal  of  England — determined  to  accompany 
him,  and  see  that  he  had  fair  play.  When  we  remember  the  unlimited 
power  of  this  high  court  in  matters  of  religion,  the  unscrupulous  char- 
acter of  its  members,  and  that  Wickliffe  had  assailed  them  in  interests 
vital  to  their  very  existence,  this  will  not  seem  an  unnecessary  or  inju- 
dicious kindness. 

The  nineteenth  of  February  came.  At  an  early  hour,  the  immense 
interior  of  old  St.  Paul's  was  densely  filled  with  prelates,  priests  and 
citizens  ;  while  a  noisy,  heaving,  struggling  crowd  blackened  the  sur- 
rounding area.  Courtney,  Bishop  of  London,  seated  on  the  magnifi- 
cent episcopal  throne,  and  surrounded  by  robed  and  mitred  digni- 
taries, smiled  in  conscious  power  and  anticipated  triumph.  Would 
Wickliffe  venture  to  appear  ?  Or  would  he  flee,  and  hide  himself 
from  the  vengeance  he  had  provoked  ?  In  cither  case,  he  was  a 
doomed  man.  What  then  must  have  been  the  prelate's  surprise  and 
rage,  when  the  opening  crowd  disclosed  the  apostolic  figure  of  Wick- 
liffe, robed  in  his  simple  college  gown,  and  leaning  on  his  peaceful 
white  staff,  between  the  martial  forms  of  Lancaster  and  Percy  !  For- 
getting all  prudence  and  propriety,  he  started  angrily  from  his  seat, 
and  addressed  the  two  noblemen  in  a  tone  of  insolent  rebuke,  such  as 
peers  and  soldiers  are  not  wont  to  endure  patiently.  Their  reply  was 
in  a  spirit  no  less  haughty  ;  and  the  fierce  colloquy  ended  in  a  tumult 
which  broke  up  the  meeting,  and  the  innocent  occasion  of  the  uproar 
quietly  withdrew,  without  having  been  asked  a  question,  or  having 
uttered  a  word. 

But  his  enemies  were  not  to  be  thus  baffled.     They  now  determined 


THE   POPE   AND    BISHOPS    IN   THE   FIELD.  35 

to  invest  their  proceedings  with  an  authority  to  which  all  must  bow, 
viz.,  that  of  the  Pope  himself. — His  Holiness  gave  ready  ear  to 
their  application.  In  the  June  following  the  abortive  meeting  at  St. 
Paul's,  no  less  than  five  bulls  were  sent  from  Avignon  to  England,  all 
having  for  their  object  the  apprehension  of  Wickiiffe,  and  his  delivery 
to  the  ecclesiastical  power.  One  was  addressed  to  the  King,  three  to 
the  Archbishop  cf  Canterbury  and  the  Bishop  of  London,  and  one  to 
the  University  of  Oxford.  'The  purport  of  all  was  the  same.  The 
Plead  of  the  Church  deplores  the  defection  of  England  from  the  true 
way,  made  known  to  him  by  persons  of  credit,  so  that  she  who  was 
once  the  defender  of  the  faith  has  become  the  nurse  of  heresy.  Puis 
sad  change  is  ascribed  chiefly  to  "  the  labors  of  John  Wickiiffe,  Mas- 
ter in  Divinity,  more  properly  Master  in  Error,  who  had  proceeded  to 
a  degree  of  madness  so  detestable,  as  not  to  fear  to  assert,  dogmatize, 
and  publicly  teach  opinions  the  most  false  and  erroneous,  contrary  to 
the  faith,  and  tending  to  the  entire  subversion  of  the  Church."  It  is 
enjoined,  therefore,  that  if,  on  inquiry,  these  charges  prove  to  be  well 
founded,  said  Wickiiffe  be  committed  to  prison,  and  kept  in  sure  cus- 
tody till  he  shall  have  answered  to  the  accusation,  and  judgment  be 
received  thereon  from  the  Holy  See.  The  Bishops  are  exhorted  to 
use  all  diligence  to  guard  the  King,  the  Prince  of  Wales,  the  nobility, 
and  royal  councillors  from  the  infection  of  these  pestilent  errors. 
The  King  is  called  on  to  sustain  the  authority  of  the  clergy,  in  doing 
their  duty  in  the  execution  of  these  bulls.  The  University  is  sum- 
moned, by  virtue  of  the  obedience  due  to  the  apostolic  letters,  and  on 
pain  of  losing  all  graces,  indulgences,  and  privileges  granted  to  it  by 
the  Holy  See,  to  deliver  up  the  person  of  John  Wickiiffe,  and  of  all 
others  embracing  his  errors,  into  the  custody  of  the  prelates  commis- 
sioned by  the  Pontiff  for  that  purpose. 

Thus  terrible  to  the  kingdom  of  darkness,  is  a  man  who  gives  fear- 
less utterance  to  the  truth  ! 

The  death  of  Edward  III.,  the  same  month  in  which  these  formida- 
ble instruments  were  prepared  at  Avignon,  and  the  reestablishment  of 
Lancaster's  power  on  the  accession  of  the  youthful  Richard  II.,  in- 
duced the  prelates  to  suspend  their  vengeance  for  a  time  ;  so  that  the 
existence  of  these  bulls  was  known  to  none  but  themselves,  until  the 
following  January.  Meantime  Wickiiffe  did  not  fail  to  give  them 
abundant  occasion  to  "  nurse  their  wrath  and  keep  it  warm,"  against 
the  favorable  hour.  The  first  parliament  under  the  new  king,  held  in 
October,  resumed  with  great  spirit  the  subject  of  papal  encroachment. 
In  the  course  of  the  discussion,  a  question  came  up  on  which  Wick- 
liffe's  opinion  was  demanded,  it  is  said,  in  the  name  of  the  king,  viz. : 


7,6  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

"  "Whether  the  kingdom  of  England  may  lawfully,  in  case  of  neces- 
sity, detain  and  keep  back  the  treasure  of  the  kingdom  for  its  own 
defence,  that  it  be  not  carried  away  to  foreign  and  strange  nations, 
the  Pope  himself  demanding  and  requiring  the  same  under  pain  of 
censure  and  by  virtue  of  obedience?"  This  was  not  a  question  of 
abstract  right,  but  one  of  imminent  practical  import  at  the  very  mo- 
ment— England  being  then  at  war  with  France,  and  the  French  Pope, 
by  virtue  of  his  spiritual  office,  draining  her  of  money  to  furnish 
weapons  to  her  enemy. 

In  his  reply,  Wickliffe,  as  usual,  goes  to  the  root  of  the  matter,  by 
an  appeal  to  the  nature  and  tenure  of  the  apostolic  office,  as  exhibited 
in  the  New  Testament.  "  Christ  saith  to  the  Apostles  :  '  The  kings 
of  the  nations  rule  over  them,  but  ye  shall  not  do  so.'  Here  lordship 
and  rule  is  forbidden  to  the  Apostles,  and  darest  thou  [their  succes- 
sor] usurp  the  same  ?  If  thou  wilt  be  a  lord,  thou  shalt  lose  thy 
apostleship  ;  or,  if  thou  wilt  be  an  apostle,  thou  shalt  lose  thy  lord- 
ship ;  for  truly  thou  must  depart  from  one  of  them.  If  thou  wilt 
have  both,  thou  shalt  lose  both,  or  be  of  that  number  of  whom  God 
complains  :  '  They  have  reigned,  but  not  through  me  ;  they  have  be- 
come princes,  and  I  have  not  known  it. '  Now,  if  it  doth  suffice  thee 
'to  rule  with  the  Lord,  thou  hast  thy  glory.  But  if  we  will  keep  what 
is  forbidden  us,  let  us  hear  what  he  saith  :  '  He  that  is  greatest  among 
you,  shall  be  made  as  the  least  ;  and  he  which  is  highest  shall  be  as 
the  servant  ;'  and  for  an  example,  he  set  a  child  in  the  midst  of  them. 
So  then,  this  is  the  true  form  and  institution  of  the  Apostle's  trade  ; 

LORDSHIP    AND     RULE     IS     FORBIDDEN  ;     MINISTRATION     AND     SERVICE 

COMMANDED."  Therefore,  concludes  the  Reformer,  the  temporal 
goods  heretofore  bestowed  on  the  Pope  were  not  his  by  the  right 
apostolical,  but  simply  as  alms,  given  at  the  pleasure  of  the  donor.' 
And  as  the  duty  of  alms-giving  is  measured  by  the  necessity  of  the 
recipient  and  the  ability  of  the  donor,  it  cannot  be  the  duty  of  Eng- 
land, in  her  present  impoverished  condition,  to  bestow  charity  on  the 
Pope,  who  is  already  overloaded  with  riches.  Wherefore,  England 
may  detain  her  treasure  for  her  own  defence,  even  against  the  direct 
command  of  the  Pope.  With  such  simplicity  and  ease  did  Wickliffe, 
with  the  New  Testament  for  his  guide,  loose  a  knot  which  had  been 
tightening  for  centuries,  and  was  now  puzzling  the  wisest  heads  of  the 
age. 

But  it  was  now  his  enemies'  turn  to  strike  a  blow.  Three  months 
after  this,  a  special  messenger  conveyed  the  papal  bull,  so  long  con- 
cealed, to  Oxford,  and  delivered  it  in  due  form  to  the  Chancellor  of 
the  University.     In  an  accompanying  letter,  the  prelates  demanded 


THE   POrE   AND    BISHOPS   IN   THE   FIELD.  37 

that  Wickliffe  be  sent  to  St.  Paul's,  there  to  make  answer  to  the 
charges  against  him.  The  University  authorities,  displeased  with  this 
papal  and  episcopal  interference  in  their  affairs,  showed  no  haste  to 
comply.  But  a  synod  being  assembled  at  Lambeth  in  April,  Wick- 
liffe promptly  obeyed  a  summons  to  be  present. 

This  time,  he  faced  his  enemies  alone.  A  written  statement  of  his 
imputed  errors  and  heresies  being  furnished  him,  he,  in  turn,  replied 
to  the  charges  in  writing,  improving  the  occasion  to  give  a  still  more 
full  and  distinct  exposition  of  his  views.  Exceptions  have  been  taken 
to  this  document  as,  in  some  portions,  seemingly  vague  and  evasive  in 
its  character.  But  in  his  perfect  clearness  in  the  statement  of  views 
most  hazardous  to  express  before  such  an  assembly,  and  in  the  man- 
ner in  which  the  paper  was  received  by  his  opponents,  we  have  suffi- 
cient evidence  that  all  the  weapons  used  by  the  Reformer  on  this 
occasion  were  worthy  of  his  character,  and  well  chosen  for  the  time 
and  place.  The  assertion  that  political  dominion,  or  civil  secular 
government,  inheres  in  the  laity,  not  in  Peter  or  his  successors  ;  and 
that  it  is  lawful  for  the  secular  power  to  take  away  temporalities'  from 
churchmen  who  habitually  abuse  them,  "  notwithstanding  excommuni- 
cation, or  any  other  church  censure,'"  could  not  have  been  misunder- 
stood by  the  tribunal  before  which  he  was  arraigned.  But  he  took  a 
yet  higher  and  bolder  tone.  It  had  come  to  be  understood,  thai  all 
legislative  and  judicial  competency  in  religious  matters  was  vested  in 
the  clergy  ;  that  they,  in  fact,  constituted  the  church  ;  while  the 
part  of  Hie  laity  was  simply  that  of  implicit,  blind  submission.  Ifi 
opposition  to  this,  Wickliffe  maintains  that  ecclesiastics,  nay,  even  th? 
Pope  of  Rome  himself  may,  in  somefcases,  be  corrected  by  their  sub- 
jects, and  "  for  the  benefit  of  the  Church,  be  impleaded  by  both  clergy 
and  laity."  For  the  Pope,  he  argues,  being  our  peccable  brother  and 
liable  to  sin  as  well  as  we,  is,  like  us,  subject  to  the  law  of  brotherly 
reproof.  "When,  therefore,"  he  proceeds,  "the  whole  college  of 
cardinals  is  remiss  in  correcting  him  for  the  necessary  welfare  of  the 
Church,  it  is  evident  that  the  rest  of  the  body,  which,  as  it  may  chance, 
may  chiefly  be  made  up  of  the  laity,  may  medicinally  reprove  and  im- 
plead him,  and  reduce  him  to  lead  a  better  life." 

What  would  have  been  the  issue  of  this  trial,  it  is  not  difficult  to 
conjecture,  had  it  not  been  averted  as  unexpectedly  as  before  at  St. 
Paul's.  Deliverance  came,  however,  in  this  case,  from  a  very  differ- 
ent source,  and  in  a  manner  which  testified  the  spread  of  Wickliffe's 
opinions  among  the  common  people.  A  general  alarm  for  his  safety 
prevailed  among  his  friends,  increased,  no  doubt,  by  the  fact  that  the 
trial  was  conducted  before  a  secret  tribunal.      This  feeling  burst  forth 


38  ENGLISH    BIBLE  TRANSLATION. 

at  last  into  act.  The  populace  began  to  stream  from  various  quarters 
toward  the  place  of  meeting,  and  were  there  joined  by  many  of  the 
first  citizens  of  London.  Pressing  their  way  into  the  building,  the 
excited  crowd  burst  open  the  door  of  the  council-room,  and  rushing 
in,  loudly  demanded  Wickliffe.  And  when,  in  the  midst  of  the 
tumult,  Sir  Lewis  Clifford  entered  the  assembly,  and  in  the  name  of 
the  King's  mother  (widow  of  the  Black  Prince)  forbade  any  definitive 
sentence  by  the  Court,  a  panic  fear  seized  on  the  bold  churchmen. 
In  the  indignant  words  of  one  of  their  own  historians,*  they  became 
"  as  a  reed  shaken  by  the  wind,  and  grew  soft  as  oil  in  their  speech, 
to  the  manifest  forfeiture  of  their  dignity  and  the  injury  of  the  whole 
Church.  With  such  fear  were  they  struck,  that  one  would  have 
thought  them  as  a  man  who  hears  not,  or  in  whose  mouth  there  are 
no  reproofs."  So  far  from  being  detained  "  in  custody  and  sure 
prison,"  while  awaiting  the  decision  of  the  Holy  See,  Wickliffe 
returned  peaceably  to  Oxford,  to  lecture,  preach,  and  write  against 
the  sins  of  Popery  with  more  zeal  and  effect  than  ever.  The  expected 
sentence  from  Avignon  never  arrived.  The  death  of  Gregory  XI. 
while  the  matter  was  still  pending,  and  the  distractions  incident  on 
the  "  Schism  of  the  Popes"f  which  followed,  turned  the  attention  of 
the  clergy  in  another  direction,  and  the  Reformer  was  left  for  some 
three  years  longer,  to  pursue  his  career  unmolested. 

*  Walsingham. 

f  During  the  next  fifty  years,  the  Papal  Church  was  blessed  with  two  and 
sometimes  three  infallible  heads,  who  mutually  accused  each  other  as  heretics, 
Simonists,  impostors,  and  everything  else  that  is  vile  and  impious — "  not  the 
worst  proof,"  as  Henry  quaintly  remarks,  "  of  their  infallibility." 


CHAPTER   VI. 

THE    NEW-TESTAMENT    MINISTRY    REVIVED. 

Not  far  from  this  time,  Wickliffe  started  a  movement  which,  for  its 
vital  bearings  on  the  interests  of  religion  and  for  the  perpetuity  of  its 
influence,  stands  second  only  to  his  great  work  of  giving  the  Bible  to 
the  people. 

From  the  study  of  the  New  Testament,  he  had  arrived  at  certain 
conclusions  very  much  at  variance  with  the  opinions  of  the  time. 
Some  of  these  have  already  been  noted  in  the  foregoing  narrative  ; 
but,  for  the  sake  of  clearness,  the  principal  points  will  here  be  men- 
tioned, in  connection  with  others.      He  believed — 

i St.  That  the  primitive  Church  recognized  no  hierarchy^  with  its 
ascending  ranks  and  orders  of  spiritual  princes.  "  By  the  ordinance 
of  Christ,"  says  he,  "priests  and  bishops  were  all  one.  But  after- 
ward, the  Emperor  divided  them,  and  made  bishops  to  be  lords,  and 
priests  their  servants."  "  I  boldly  assert  one  thing,  viz.  :  that  in  the 
primitive  Church  or  in  the  time  of  Paul,  two  orders  of  the  clergy  were 
sufficient,  that  is,  a  priest  and  a  deacon.  In  like  manner,  I  maintain 
that  in  the  time  of  Paul,  presbyter  and  bishops  were  names  of  the 
same  office. — All  other  degrees  and  orders  have  their  origin  in  the 
pride  of  Caesar.  If  indeed  they  were  necessary  to  the  Church,  Christ 
would  not  have  been  silent  respecting  them.  Every  Christian  should 
judge  of  the  office  of  the  clergy  from  what  is  taught  in  Scripture, 
especially  in  the  Epistles  of  Timothy  and  Titus,  and  should  not  admit 
the  new  inventions  of  Caesar." 

2d.  That  the  priest's  office  is  simply  that  of  the  ministry  of  the  word. 
The  legislative  right  claimed  by  Popes,  prelates  and  councils,  and  the 
power  of  excommunication  and  absolution  attributed  to  every  member 
of  the  clerical  order,  were,  in  his  view,  impious  invasions  of  the  pre- 
rogatives of  Christ. 

3d.  That  it  is  the  right  and  duty  of  all  priests,  by  virtue  of  their 
office,  to  preach,  the  gospel  j  and  this,  without  waiting  for  any  special 
license  from  bishops  ;  nay — so  stringent  is  the  obligation — even  in  the 
face  of  their  prohibition.  "  The  highest  service  to  which  man  may 
attain  on  earth" — such  are  his  noble  words — "is  to  preach  the  word 
of  God.     This  service  falls  peculiarly  to  priests,  and  therefore  God 


40  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

more  straitly  demands  it  of  them.  Hereby  should  they  produce  chil- 
dren to  God,  and  this  is  the  end  for  which  God  wedded  the  Church. 
It  might  indeed  be  good  to  have  a  son  that  were  lord  of  this  world  ; 
but  better  far  to  have  a  son  in  God,  who,  as  member  of  Holy  Church, 
shall  ascend  to  heaven.  And  for  this  reason,  Christ  left  other  works, 
and  occupied  himself  mostly  in  preaching,  and  thus  did  his  apostles, 
and  for  this  God  loved  them." — "  Jesus  Christ,  when  he  ascended  to 
heaven,  commanded  it  especially  to  all  his  disciples,  to  go  and  preach 
the  gospel  freely  to  all  men.  So  also  when  Christ  spoke  last  with 
Peter,  he  bade  him  thrice,  as  he  loved  him,  to  feed  his  sheep  ;  and 
this  a  wise  shepherd  would  not  have  done,  if  he  had  not  himself  loved 
it  well.  In  this  stands  the  office  of  the  spiritual  shepherd.  And  as 
the  bishops  of  the  temple  hindered  Christ,  so  is  he  hindered  now  by 
the  hindering  of  this  deed.  Therefore  Christ  told  them  that  at  the 
day  of  doom,  Sodom  and  Gomorrah  should  fare  better  than  they. 
And  thus,  if  our  bishops  preach  not  themselves,  and  hinder  true 
priests  from  preaching,  they  are  in  the  sin  of  the  bishops  who  killed 
the  Lord  Jesus  Christ." 

4th.    lliat  the  ministry  is  to  be  supported  by  the  voluntary  contributions 
of  the  people.     As  we  have  seen,  Wickliffe  had  long  maintained,  that 
ecclesiastical  endowments  were  opposed  to  the  spirit  of  the  New  Tes- 
tament, and  were  one  of  the*  main  sources  of  the  corruption  of  the 
clergy.     But  he  goes  farther  than  this.     In  his  view,  the  system  of 
tithes  had  no  better  foundation.      "  Men  wonder  highly,"  says  he  in 
a  treatise    entitled"'  The    Curse   Expounded,'    "why  curates  are  so 
severe  in  exacting  tithes,  since  Christ  and  his  apostles  took  no  tithes, 
as  men  do  now  ;  neither  paid  them,  nor  even  spoke  of  them,  either  in 
the  Gospel  or  the  Epistles,  which  are  the  perfect  law  of  freedom  and 
grace.      But  Christ  lived  on  the  alms  of  holy  women,  as  the  Gospel 
telleth  ;  and  the  apostles  lived  sometimes  by  the  labor  of  their  hands, 
and  sometimes  took  a  poor  livelihood  and  clothing,  given  of  free  will 
and  devotion  by  the  people,  without  asking  or  constraining."      "  Paul 
proved  that  priests,  preaching   truly   the   gospel,  should   live  by  the 
gospel,  and  said  naught  of  tithes.     Certainly  tithes  were  due  to  priests 
in  the  Old  Law — but  it  is  not  so  now,  in  the  law  of  grace."      "  Lord  ! 
why  should  our  worldly  priests  charge  Christian  people  with  tithes, 
offerings,    and    customs,    more    than    did    Christ    and    his    apostles  ? 
Would  to  God,  that  all  wise  and  true  men  would  inquire,  whether  it 
were  not  better  to  find  good  priests,  by  free  alms  of  the  people,  with 
a  reasonable   and   poor  livelihood,  to  teach  the  gospel  in  word  and 
deed  as  did  Christ  and  his  apostles,   than  thus  to  pay  tithes  to  a 
worldly  priest,  ignorant  and  negligent,  as  men  are  now  compelled  to 


THE   NEW-TESTAMENT    MINISTRY   REVIVED.  41 

do  by  bulls  and  new  ordinances  of  priests  !"*  In  connection  with 
this,  he  maintains  that  ordination  by  a  bishop  confers  no  fitness  for 
the  sacred  office  ;  it  is  merely  the  outward  recognition  of  a  fitness 
which  can  come  from  God  alone,  and  when  this  is  proved  to  be  want- 
ing, becomes  in  the  nature  of  the  case,  null  and  void.  The  people 
should  themselves  decide  in  this  matter,  by  comparing  the  life  of  the 
teacher  thus  placed  over  them  with  the  infallible  standard  of  Scrip- 
ture. 

The  revival  of  the  New  Testament  principle,  in  a  body  of  pious, 
self-denying  working  ministers,  depending  for  their  maintenance  on 
the  voluntary  contributions  of  those  for  whom  they  labored,  became 
now  one  of  Wickliffe's  prime  objects.  His  wonderful  success  in  this 
undertaking  attests  how  strong,  and  how  deeply  spiritual,  was  his 
influence  among  the  youth  of  Oxford.  Christ  himself  was  the  model 
on  which  he  sought  to  form  them  for  this  self-denying  work. 

"  Jesus  himself,"  says  he,  "  did  indeed  the  lessons  he  taught.  The 
Gospel  relates  how  he  went  about,  in  places  of  the  country  both  great 
and  small,  in  cities  and  castles,  or  in  small  towns,  and  this  that  he 
might  teach  us  to  become  profitable  to  men  everywhere,  and  not  to  for- 
bear to  preach  to  a  people  because  they  are  few,  and  our  name  may 
not  in  consequence  be  great.  For  we  should  labor  for  God,  and 
from  Him  hope  for  our  reward.  There  is  no  doubt  that  Christ  went 
into  small  uplandish  towns,  as  to  Bethphage  and  Cana  in  Galilee,  for 
Christ  went  to  all  those  places  where  he  wished  to  do  good.  He 
labored  not  for  gain,  he  was  not  smitten  with  pride  or  covetousness. " 
"  It  was  ever  the  manner  of  Jesus,  to  speak  the  words  cf  God  wher- 
ever he  knew   they  might   be  profitable  to  those  who   heard  them. 

*  In  these  views  we  find  an  easy  solution  of  the  disrepute  in  which  Wickliffe 
has  been  held  by  writers  of  the  Church  of  England.  The  pious  Milner  (Church 
History)  is  filled  with  horror  at  the  Reformer's  radical  notions  of  clerical  emolu- 
ment. It  is  no  wonder,  he  thinks,  that  a  man  who  entertained  such  views  of 
tithes,  should  have  been  suspected  of  abetting  Wat  Tyler  and  other  incendiaries 
of  the  time  of  Richard  II.  His  illustration  of  the  inconvenient  results  of  Wick- 
liffe's doctrine  is  a  specimen  of  naivete  hardly  to  be  excelled.  "  He  disliked," 
says  he,  "  all  church  endowments,  and  wished  to  have  the  clergy  reduced  to  a 
state  of  poverty.  He  insists  that  parishioners  have  a  right  to  withhold  tithes 
from  pastors  who  are  guilty  of  fornication.  Now,  if,  in  such  cases,  he  would 
have  allowed  every  individual  to  judge  for  himself,  who  does  not  see  what  a  door 
might  be  opened  to  confusion,  fraud,  and  the  encouragement  of  avarice  !" — 
Luther's  and  Melancthon's  prejudice  against  Wickliffe  is  explicable  on  the  same 
ground.  They  could  hardly  believe  that  a  man  holding  such  heterodox  views  of 
clerical  property,  could  understand  the  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith.  Surely 
"  the  best  of  men  are  but;  men  at  best  !"  But  the  wincing  proves  how  vital  a 
point  of  State  religions  had  been  touched  by  the  uncourteous  Reformer. 


42  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

Hence  Christ  often  preached,  now  at  meat,  now  at  supper,  and  indeed 
at  whatever  time  it  was  convenient  for  others  to  hear  him."  "  Christ 
sought  man's  soul,  lost  through  sin,  thirty  years  and  more,  with  great 
travail  and  weariness,  and  many  thousand  miles  upon  his  feet,  in 
cold,  and  storm,  and  tempest."  As  the  result  of  these  efforts  a  band 
of  young  missionaries,  fully  imbued  with  their  instructor's  views  and 
glowing  with  a  kindred  zeal,  dispersed  themselves  through  the  remote 
villages  and  hamlets  of  England,  preaching  to  all  who  would  listen, 
the  glad  tidings  of  a  free  salvation.  Like  the  seventy  sent  out  by  our 
Lord,  they  went  on  foot,  clad  in  coarse  garments,  the  pilgrim's  staff 
in  their  hands — and,  if  so  happy  as  to  own  such  a  treasure — with  a 
Latin  Bible  hid  in  the  bosom  of  their  gowns.  Wherever  they  found 
an  audience — whether  in  a  church  or  a  church-yard,  in  the  busy 
market-place,  amid  the  noisy  chaffering  and  boisterous  amusements  of 
the  fair — there  they  proclaimed  to  the  people  "  all  the  words  of  this 
life."  To  the  venal  sale  of  indulgences  and  priestly  absolution,  they 
opposed  the  unbought  grace  of  the  gospel  ;  to  the  invocation  of 
saints,  the  one  Mediator  between  God  and  man  ;  to  the  worship  of 
pictures  and  images,  the  worship  of  the  one  living  and  true  God  ;  to 
the  traditions  of  men  and  the  authority  of  priests,  the  pure  revela- 
tion of  God's  will  in  the  Holy  Scriptures.  Their  own  blameless  lives 
enforced  their  teachings.  Asking  nothing,  they  received  thankfully 
what  was  required  for  their  simple  wants  ;  and  even  from  this  were 
ever  ready  to  spare  something  for  the  needy.  The  contrast  thus  fur- 
nished with  the  gross  lives  and  insatiable  beggary  of  the  Friars,  was 
too  striking  to  be  overlooked.  The  apostolic  motto,  "  Not  yours, 
but  you,"  which  was  written  on  all  their  labors,  sunk  with  the  power 
of  demonstration  into  the  people's  heart  Such  was  their  zeal,  and 
such  the  eagerness  with  which  they  were  received,  that  whole  shires 
became  pervaded  with  their  doctrines.  John  Ashton,  it  is  said,  was 
personally  known  over  half  of  England.  So  rapid  was  their  increase 
in  numbers  and  influence  within  four  years,  that  in  1382  a  great  Con- 
vocation was  assembled  in  London,  for  the  special  purpose  of  concert- 
ing measures  to  arrest  their  progress.  The  archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury, the  bishops  and  other  prelates,  masters  of  divinity,  doctors  of 
civil  and  canon  law,  and  a  great  part  of  the  clergy  of  the  realm  being 
there  present,  united  in  an  appeal  to  the  king  for  the  suppression  of 
these  preachers,  as  a  body  of  men  who  were  perverting  the  whole 
nation  with  their  heretical  and  seditious  doctrines.  A  decree,  framed 
for  this  purpose  by  the  assembled  prelates,  received  the  secret  concur- 
rence of  the  king  and  lords,  and  was  surreptitiously  inserted  in  the 
statute-book  as  a  regular  Act  of  Parliament.      After  a  statement  of  the 


THE   NEW-TESTAMENT   MINISTRY   REVIVED.  43 

imminent  danger  to  the  Church  and  realm,  the  document  thus  con- 
cludes :  "  It  is  therefore  ordained  and  assented  in  this  present  Parlia- 
ment, that  the  king's  commission  be  made  and  directed  to  the  sheriffs 
and  other  ministers  of  our  sovereign  lord  the  king,  or  other  sufficient 
persons,  and,  according  to  the  certifications  of  the  prelates  thereof,  to 
be  made  in  the  chancery  from  time  to  time,  to  arrest  all  such  preach- 
ers, and  also  their  fautors,  maintainers  and  abettors,  and  hold  them  in 
arrest  and  strong  prison,  till  they  shall  purify  themselves  according  to 
the  law  and  reason  of  Holy  Church.  And  the  kingwilleth  and  com- 
mandeth,  that  the  Chancellor  make  such  commission  at  all  times  that 
he,  by  the  prelates  or  any  of  them,  shall  be  certified  and  thereof 
required,  as  aforesaid." 

When  this  fraud  was  discovered  by  the  lower  House,  they  insisted 
that  the  act  should  be  repealed  ;  but  the  prelates  so  managed  that  it 
kept  its  place  in  the  statute-book,  and  through  many  succeeding  years 
formed  the  basis  of  prosecutions  for  heresy. 

The  measures  thus  resolved  on  were  followed  up  with  energy,  but 
with  little  effect.  The  love  of  the  people  was  as  a  wall  of  fire  round 
about  their  faithful  teachers.  Many  country  baronets  of  wealth  and 
influence  likewise  espoused  their  cause  ;  and  sometimes,  when  danger 
was  apprehended,  a  body-guard  of  gentlemen  was  seen  around  the 
pulpit,  ready,  if  necessary,  to  defend  with  their  good  swords  the 
right  of  Englishmen  to  speak  and  to  hear,  according  to  the  dictates 
of  their  own  consciences.  The  intimidated  sheriff,  having  served  on 
the  preacher  a  citation  to  appear  before  the  bishop,  would  retire  ;  and 
before  adequate  forces  could  be  raised  to  execute  the  writ,  the  evan- 
gelist was  proclaiming  in  some  far-off  hamlet  the  glad  tidings  of  salva- 
tion to  its  neglected  poor.  The  devices  of  prelates,  and  the  decrees 
of  kings,  were  not  able  to  break  again  "  the  apostolic  succession" 
thus  revived  by  Wickliffe  ;  nor  has  it  been  interrupted  from  that  day 
to  the  present.  From  that  day,  the  Bible-conception  of  the  Christian 
ministry,  evolved  in  such  beautiful  completeness  by  this  master-spirit 
five  hundred  years  ago,  has  been  slowly  leavening  the  English  mind  ; 
and  from  the  conflicts  for  religious  liberty  to  which  it  has  given 
birth,  civil  freedom  likewise  has  caught  its  noblest  impulses.  To 
estimate  its  full  import,  we  must  trace  its  influence  through  English 
history  till  its  full  development,  on  these  western  shores,  gave  to  the 
world  the  spectacle  of  a  Christian  nation,  without  a  State  Church  ; 
where  government  is  maintained,  and  religion  flourishes,  without  a 
Bishop  or  a  King. 


CHAPTER   VII. 

WICKLIFFE    ATTACKS    THE    CITADEL    OF    PAPAL    INFLUENCE. 

We  must  now  briefly  contemplate  Wickliffe  in  yet  one  more  conflict, 
deeply  interesting  in  itself,  and  still  more  interesting  as  forming  the 
transition  to  the  greatest,  and  closing  labor  of  his  life. 

In  the  years  1379-80,  the  subject  of  the  Eucharist  assumed  a  very 
prominent  place  in  his  lectures  at  Oxford.  In  this  doctrine,  as  held 
in  the  papal  Church,  the  Reformer  grappled  with  no  mere  airy  meta- 
physical dogma.  The  welcome  it  received  from  the  Romish  clergy 
when  first  promulgated,  in  the  ninth  century,  and  the  tenacity  with 
which  they  have  clung  to  it  even  down  to  the  present  day,  attests  their 
appreciation  of  its  practical  importance.  "  The  sacrament  of  com- 
munion," says  a  recent  Catholic  writer,*  "  is  the  highest  of  our  mys- 
teries, and  is  the  central  point  of  all  the  institutions  of  the  Catholic 
Church."  And  again  :  "  The  Catholic  view  of  communion  pervades 
the  whole  Catholic  religious  and  ecclesiastical  system."  "  By  the 
reformation  of  the  sixteenth  century,  the  whole  Catholic  system  was 
attacked  ;  as  the  reformers,  rejecting  the  traditions  of  the  Church, 
took  the  Bible  alone  for  their  guide  in  matters  of  belief,  and  depart- 
ed, at  the  same  time,  from  the  Catholic  theory  of  communion.  If  they 
had  left  the  Catholic  doctrine  on  communion,  the  priesthood  and  Mass 
would  necessarily  have  remained  too."  A  consideration  of  a  few 
leading  points  involved  in  the  doctrine  fully  justifies  these  assertions  ; 
and  shows  that  it  forms  the  dividing  line  between  Romanism,  with  its 
traditions,  its  mystic  sense,  and  its  blind  submission  to  the  priesthood, 
on  the  one  side,  and  on  the  other,  Protestantism,  with  its  respect  for 
the  human  understanding,  and  its  acceptance  of  the  Bible  as  supreme 
authority. 

Its  very  starting-point  was  the  repudiation  of  the  bodily  senses,  of 
the  reason,  and  of  Scripture,  as  reliable  sources  of  evidence.  The 
dictum  of  the  Church  was  here  all  and  in  all.  Sight,  smell,  taste, 
touch,  though  obstinately  reporting  the  bread  to  be  still  bread  ;  the 
plainest  conclusions  of  reason,  and  the  obvious  import  of  Scripture  ; 

*  See  the  article  Lord's  Supper,  in  the  Encyc.  Americana,  where  the  Romish 
view  is  presented  by  one  of  its  adherents  with  great  clearness,  and  will  be  seen 
to  difTcr  in  no  respect  from  that  combated  by  Wickliffe  in  the  fourteenth  century. 


WICKLIFFE   ATTACKS   THE   PAPAL   CITADEL.  45 

all  weighed  nothing  in  opposition  to  that  "  mystic  sense,"  which  the 
Church  had  seen  fit  to  impose  on  the  ordinance  of  the  Supper.  So 
interpreted,  it  presented  a  strange  combination  of  Jewish  and  Pagan 
ideas  under  Christian  names.  It  was  Jewish,  in  its  notion  of  a  per- 
petually repeated  sacrifice  for  sin  ;  for,  at  each  performance  of  Mass, 
the  living  Christ,  "  body  and  blood,  soul  and  divinity,"  was  offered 
anew  as  a  propitiation  to  the  Father  !  It  was  Pagan,  in  its  worship 
of  an  inanimate,  created  object  as  God,  and  in  its  multiplication  of 
gods.  For  not  only  did  the  wafer  become,  by  the  consecrating 
words,  a  proper  object  of  adoration,  but  each  separate  fragment  into 
which  it  was  broken  contained  the  whole  Christ,  and  was  to  be  wor- 
shipped as  such.  Of  the  spiritual  worship  of  the  one  invisible,  uncre- 
ated God,  and  of  the  atonement  made  by  Christ,  once  for  all,  nothing 
was  left  but  these  monstrous,  distorted  shadows. 

From  this  view  of  the  Lord's  Supper,  necessarily  proceeded  that  of 
the  mysterious  sanctity  and  prerogatives  of  the  clerical  office.  Who 
could  set  limits  to  the  spiritual  power  of  one  who  could  thus  "  make 
his  Maker"?  By  what  arguments  could  the  credulous  believer  be  per- 
suaded, that  anathemas  and  absolutions  from  lips  that  pronounced  the 
awful  "  Hoc  corpus  meum,"  were  of  no  effect  ?  The  simple  minister 
of  the  word  thus  rose  into  the  dignity  of  a  sacrificing  priest,  whose 
consecrated  hands  offered  the  atonement,  without  which  there  was  no 
remission  of  sins.  Nay,  he  could  reach  even  to  the  place  of  departed 
spirits,  and  there  reverse  the  decisions  of  God  himself  on  those  who 
had  died  in  sin.  It  was  chiefly  through  this  doctrine,  that  the  Romish 
clergy  had  obtained  their  strange  sway  over  the  minds  of  men  ;  for 
having,  in  regard  to  this  vital  point,  given  up  the  Scriptures,  reason, 
and  their  very  senses,  into  the  keeping  of  their  spiritual  guides,  there 
was  nothing  to  save  them  from  being  blind  victims  of  every  other  im- 
position. Body  and  soul  were  both  sealed  for  bondage.  The  outer 
light  of  Scripture  was  taken  away  ;  the  light  that  was  in  them  became 
darkness. 

There  has  been  much  controversy  as  to  the  precise  views  enter- 
tained by  VVickliffe  himself  in  regard  to  the  Eucharist,  originating 
probably  in  a  misapprehension  of  the  obscure  scholastic  language  of 
his  learned  discussions.  Nothing  can  be  the  more  explicit,  or  satis* 
factory,  than  the  views  expressed  in  his  English  writings  on  the  sub- 
ject, intended  for  the  common  people.  Thus  in  his  "  Wyckett,"  an 
English  treatise  in  defence  of  the  scripture  doctrine  of  the  Supper,  he 
asks,  "  May  the  thing  made  turn  again  and  make  him  that  made  it  ? 
Thou  then  that  art  an  earthly  man,  by  what  reason  mayst  thou  say 
that  thou  makest  thy  Maker  ?     Were  this  doctrine  true,  it  would  fol- 


46  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

low  that  the  thing  which  is  not  God  to-day  shall  be  God  to-morrow  ; 
yea,  the  thing  that  is  without  spirit  of  life,  but  groweth  in  the  field  by 
nature,  shall  another  time  be  God.  And  yet  we  ought  to  believe  that 
God  is  without  beginning  or  ending."  "  Christ  saith,  I  am  a  very 
vine.  Wherefore  do  ye. not  worship  the  vine  for  God,  as  ye  do  the 
bread  ?  Wherein  was  Christ  a  very  vine  ?  Or  wherein  was  the  bread 
Christ's  body  ?  It  was  in  figurative  speech,  which  is  hidden  to  the 
understanding  of  sinners.  And  thus,  as  Christ  became  not  a  material 
or  earthly  vine,  nor  a  material  vine  the  body  of  Christ,  so  neither  is 
material  bread  changed  for  its  substance  into  the  flesh  and  blood  of 
Christ." 

But  whether,  in  that  dark  age,  he  attained  to  perfect  light  on  this 
or  other  doctrines,  is  to  us  of  little  moment,  compared  with  his  noble 
vindication  of  the  two  great  Protestant  principles — the  word  of  God 
the  sole  guide  in  matters  of  religion  ;  individual  inquiry  and  convic- 
tion the  right  and  duty  of  all  men. 

It  was  from  this  purely  Protestant  stand-point,  that  Wickliffe  assailed 
the  vital  dogma  of  the  Papacy.  He  resented  the  indignity  it  offered, 
both  to  the  reason  which  God  had  kindled  as  a  light  in  the  soul  of 
man,  and  to  the  revelation  of  his  own  will  in  the  Scriptures.  "  Of  all 
the  heresies  that  have  ever  sprung  up  in  the  Church,"  thus  he  writes 
in  the  Trialogus,  "  I  think  there  is  not  one  more  artfully  introduced 
by  hypocrites,  or  one  imposing  such  manifold  fraud  on  the  people. 
It  repudiates  the  Scriptures  ;  it  wrongs  the  people  ;  it  causes  them  to 
commit  idolatry.  It  is  not  reasonable  to  suppose  that  God  can  have 
designed  to  put  confusion  on  that  intelligence  which  he  has  himself 
implanted  in  our  nature.  Of  all  the  external  senses  that  God  has  be- 
stowed on  man,  touch  and  taste  are  the  least  liable  to  err  in  the  judg- 
ment they  give.  But  this  heresy  would  overturn  the  evidence  of  these 
senses,  and  without  cause  ;  surely  the  sacrament  which  does  that  must 
be  a  sacrament  of  Antichrist."  "  Let  the  knowledge  obtained  by  our 
external  senses  deceive  us,  and  the  internal  senses  will,  of  necessity, 
fall  under  the  same  delusion.  But  what,"  he  exclaims,  "  can  have 
moved  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  thus  to  confound  and  destroy  all  power 
of  natural  discernment,  in  the  senses  and  minds  of  his  worshippers  ?" 
"  It  is,"  he  says  in  his  Trialogus,  "  as  if  the  Devil  had  been  scheming 
to  this  effect,  saying — '  If  I  can,  by  my  vicar  Antichrist,  so  far  seduce 
believers  as  to  bring  them  to  deny  that  this  sacrament  is  bread, 
and  to  believe  in  it  as  a  contemptible  quality  without  a  substance,  I 
may  after  that,  and  in  the  same  manner,  lead  them  to  believe  whatever 
T  may  wish  ;  inasmuch  as  the  opposite  is  plainly  taught,  both  by  the 
language  of  Scripture,  and  by  the  very  senses  of  mankind.'     Doubt- 


WICKLIFFE   ATTACKS   THE   PAPAL   CITADEL.  47 

less,  afttr  a  while,  these  simple-hearted  believers  may  be  brought  to 
say,  that  however  a  prelate  may  live — be  he  effeminate,  a  homicide,  a 
simonist,  or  stained  with  any  other  vice — this  must  never  be  believed 
concerning  him  by  a  people  who  would  be  regarded  as  duly  obedient. 
But  by  the  grace  of  Christ,  I  will  keep  clear  of  the  heresy  which 
teaches  that  if  the  Pope  and  Cardinals  assert  a  certain  thing  to  be  the 
sense  of  Scripture,  therefore  so  it  is  ;  for  that  were  to  set  them  above 
the  Apostles." 

But  though  he  would  not  allow  the  witness  of  the  human  senses  and 
reason  to  be  set  aside  by  mere  Church  authority,  the  Scriptures  were, 
on  this  as  on  every  other  doctrine,  the  only  infallible  guide.  "  Let 
every  man,"  he  says  in  the  conclusion  of  his  '  Wyckett, '  "wisely, 
with  much  care  and  great  study,  and  also  with  charity,  read  the  words 
of  God  in  the  Holy  Scriptures."  "  Now,  therefore,  pray  we  heartily 
to  God  that  this  evil  time  may  be  made  short,  for  the  sake  of  the 
chosen  men,  as  he  hath  promised  in  his  holy  Gospel  ;  and  that  the 
large  and  broad  way  to  perdition  maybe  stopped,  and  that  the  straight 
and  narrow  way  which  leadeth  to  bliss  may  be  made  open  by  the  Holy 
Scriptures,  that  we  may  know  what  is  the  will  of  God,  to  serve  him 
with  truth  and  holiness,  in  the  dread  of  God,  that  we  may  find  by  him 
a  way  of  bliss  everlasting.      So  be  it  !" 

For  two  or  three  years,  Wickliffe  was  zealously  engaged  in  dissemi- 
nating these  views  in  the  lecture-room,  in  the  pulpit,  and  by  his  ever 
active  pen.  That  he  was  permitted  tc  do  it  so  long  unquestioned,  he 
owed  chiefly  to  the  distractions  in  the  Papacy,  which,  for  a  long 
period,  furnished  the  prelates  of  Christendom  with  full  occupation. 
But  from  the  sequel,  it  is  clear  that  his  course  was  watched  by  eager 
foes,  who  were  merely  "biding  their  time."  Such  he  had  even  at 
Oxford,  and  by  various  changes,  they  at  length  came  to  have  the 
ascendency  in  the  University  administration.  In  the  spring  of  13S1, 
Wickliffe  challenged  the  University  to  a  public  disputation  on  the  sub- 
ject of  the  Eucharist.  In  the  twelve  theses  which  he  published  as  the 
basis  of  the  discussion,  he  declared  that  "  the  bread  we  see  on  the 
altar  is  not  Christ,  nor  any  part  of  him,  but  simply  an  effectual  sign 
of  him  ;  and  that  the  doctrines  of  transubstantiation,  identification, 
and  impanation,  have  no  basis  in  Scripture."  This  brought  on  the 
crisis.  Berton,  their  chancellor,  being  a  partizan  of  the  Religious 
Orders,  and,  of  course,  hostile  to  Wickliffe,  resolved  that  he  should 
not  have  the  eclat  of  a  victory  at  Oxford.  Instead,  therefore,  of  re- 
sponding to  his  challenge,  he  assembled  a  secret  council  of  twelve 
theological  doctors,  eight  being  from  the  Orders,  who  unanimously 
pronounced  Wickliffe's  doctrine  to  be  erroneous,  and  contrary  to  the 


48  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

determinations  of  the  Church.  They  decreed,  furthermore,  iihat  "  if 
any  person,  of  whatever  degree,  state,  or  condition,  shall  in  future 
publicly  teach  such  doctrine  in  the  University,  or  shall  listen  to  one 
so  teaching,  he  shall  be  suspended  from  all  scholastic  exercises,  shall 
be  liable  to  the  greater  excommunication,  and  shall  be  committed  to 
prison."  Truly,  a  compendious  method  for  purging  Oxford  of 
heresy  ! 

Wickliffe  was  seated  in  his  lecture-room,  discussing  this  very  subject 
before  his  class,  when  the  University  officers  entered,  and  announced 
the  above  decrees.  It  has  been  asserted  by  his  enemies,  that  he  be- 
trayed some  confusion  while  listening  to  the  proclamation.  It  surely 
would  argue  no  remarkable  weakness,  had  so  sudden  and  rude  an  as- 
sault— and  in  that  place  of  all  others — shaken  his  firm  spirit  for  the 
moment.  Wickliffe  was  not  a  man  of  iron  nerves,  but,  as  we  see  from 
his  portrait,  and  from  the  reflection  of  his  life  and  writings,  of  the 
most  quick'  and  lively  sensibility.  The  emotion  was  but  for  an  in- 
stant. Rising  with  dignity,  as  soon  as  the  reading  of  the  official  docu- 
ment was  finished,  he  protested  against  this  arbitrary  suppression  of 
opinions,  which  could  not  be  confuted  in  a  free  discussion,  and  de- 
clared his  intention  to  appeal  to  the  King  for  the  protection  of  his 
rights. 

The  Chancellor's  power  could  not  reach  beyond  Oxford.  Wickliffe 
therefore  retired  to  Lutterworth,  and  devoted  himself  to  writing  and 
preaching,  while  awaiting  a  reversal  of  Berton's  unjust  decision.  But 
this  never  came.  The  rude  dismissal,  thus  described,  proved  to  be 
the  close  of  his  connection  with  a  school  of  sacred  learning  of  which 
he  had  been  so  long  the  most  illustrious  ornament.  No  doubt  it  was 
an  event  in  many  ways  painful  to  himself,  and  exulted  in  by  his  ene- 
mies as  a  signal,  if  not  final  victory  over  the  bold  Reformer.  Could 
they  have  foreseen  the  result,  they  would  have  left  him  unmolested  in 
the  Professor' s  chair.  Their  short-sighted  hatred  served  but  to  in- 
troduce that  crowning  period  of  his  labors,  which  gave  to  priestcraft 
in  England  its  deadly  wound,  and  made  his  influence  and  name  im- 
perishable. 


CHAPTER    VIII. 

wickliffe's  writings  for  the  people. 

From  the  period  of  Wickliffe's  retirement  to  Lutterworth,  a  marked 
change  appears  in  the  direction  of  his  labors.  The  plans  of  reform  on 
which  he  had  spent  so  large  a  portion  of  his  best  years,  seemed  now 
farther  from  realization  than  ever.  All  hope  of  improvement  pro- 
ceeding from  the  "  Head  of  the  Church,"  from  the  clergy,  or  from 
the  enlightened  action  of  the  secular  power,  was  now  seen  to  be  vain. 
Even  Oxford,  the  last  refuge  of  intellectual  and  religious  freedom, 
had  barred  her  doors  against  him.  It  all  served  but  to  ripen  in  his 
rnind  the  great  idea,  by  which  his  labors  were  to  be  separated  from 
the  decaying  Past,  and  to  receive  a  living,  organic  connection  with 
the  whole  future  of  his  country  and  his  race.  He  turns  from  king 
and  noble,  from  Pope,  and  priesc  and  scholar,  with  the  determination 
to  place  the  light  of  divine  truth,  freed  from  all  veil  or  covering,  in  the 
honest  keeping  of  the  common  people. 

Under  the  inspiration  of  this  idea,  Wickliffe  entered  with  redoubled 
vigor  on  the  final  stage  of  his  activity.  He  was  now  in  his  fifty-sev- 
enth year  ;  and  though  disease,  and  the  excitements  of  his  stormy  life 
had  shaken  his  bodily  frame,  the  eagle  spirit  seemed  gifted  with 
more  than  youthful  fire.  Never  before  had  he  exhibited  such  pro- 
ductive energy.  His  English  writings  for  the  people  budded  under 
his  pen  like  leaves  in  spring.  It  is  evident,  from  various  passages  in 
his  works,  that  he  looked  upon  this  golden  opportunity  as  very  brief  ; 
that  persecution,  to  close  perhaps  in  martyrdom,  was  among  the 
anticipations  of  each  to-morrow.  He  labored,  therefore,  as  one  who 
has  a  message  of  life  and  death  to  deliver,  and  fears  he  may  net  have 
time  to  utter  it.  "I  should  be  worse  than  an  infidel" — thus  he 
writes  in  one  of  his  works  on  the  Eucharist — "  were  I  not  to  defend 
unto  the  death  the  law  of  Christ  ;  and  certain  I  am,  that  it  is  not  in 
the  power  of  the  heretics,  and  disciples  of  antichrist,  to  impugn  this 
evangelical  doctrine.  On  the  contrary,  I  trust  through  our  Lord's 
mercy  to  be  superabundantly  rewarded,  after  this  short  and  miserable 
life,  for  the  lawful  contention  which  I  wage.  I  know  from  the  Gos- 
pel, that  antichrist,  with  all  his  devices,  can  only  kill  the  body  ;  but 
Christ,  in  whose  cause  I  contend,  can  cast  both  body  and  soul  into 


50  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

hell-fire.  Sure  I  am,  that  he  will  not  suffer  his  servants  to  want  what 
is  needful  for  them,  since  he  freely  exposed  himself  to  a  dreadful 
death  for  their  sakes,  and  has  ordained  that  all  his  most  beloved  dis- 
ciples should  pass  through  severe  suffering  with  a  view  to  their 
good. 

It  is  a  matter  of  regret,  that  the  limits  of  this  sketch  allow  only  of  a 
few  brief  extracts  from  these  writings,  so  characteristic  of  the  genius 
and  spirit  of  the  man.  The  whole  range  of  subjects  which  had 
formed  the  groundwork  of  his  life-labors,  was  here  presented  in  a 
form  admirably  adapted  to  the  common  mind.  In  his  own  noble, 
homely,  expressive  English,  the  true  language  of  the  people,  he 
unmasks  the  character,  the  false  pretensions  and  corrupt  doctrines  of 
the  priesthood  ;  and  encourages  the  humble  reader,  "in  the  exercise  of 
the  understanding  which  God  has  given  him,  enlightened  by  the 
Scriptures,  to  meet  them  like  a  free  Christian  man.  They  are  not, 
however,  mainly  of  a  controversial  nature,  though  most  of  them  must, 
of  necessity,  contain  pointed  allusions  to  the  specific  sins  and  errors 
of  the  clergy.  But  his  chief  object,  in  the  exposure  of  error,  is  to 
gain  for  the  great  saving  truths  of  the  Gospel,  an  immediate,  life-im- 
parting contact  with  the  souls  of  his  readers.  He  seeks  to  detach 
them  from  their  false  guides,  only  that  he  may  lead  them  to  the  one 
Saviour  from  sin  and  misery. 

Among  the  most  interesting  of  his  offerings  to  the  poor  and  humble 
in  society,  are  those  little  treatises,  designed  strictly  as  helps  to  a 
devout  and  holy  life.  His  English  writings,  in  general,  are  charac- 
terized by  a  brevity  singular  in  that  day  of  interminable  folios.  But 
these  mark  still  more  strikingly,  the  practical  genius  of  the  Reformer. 
Our  modern  religious  tracts,  that  mighty  agency  for  the  diffusion  of 
truth,  are  but  the  reproduction  of  the  device  struck  from  his  pro- 
phetic brain  five  hundred  years  ago.  "  The  Poor  Caitiff"  *  is  a  col- 
lection of  such  little  detached  pieces,  none  of  them  extending  beyond 
a  few  pages,  some  only  over  a  leaf  or  two,  and  others  but  a  single 
page.  From  their  extreme  brevity,  they  could  be  multiplied  and 
scattered  almost  without  limit,  even  in  an  age  when  printing  was  un- 
known. It  has  been  well  said  of  Dr.  Watts,  that  the  true  greatness 
of  his  character  nowhere  appears  so  clearly  as  in  his  "  Divine  Songs 
for  Children."  With  yet  deeper  reverence  do  we  sit  at  the  feet  of 
Wickliffe,  the  royal  ambassador,  the  friend  of  princes,  the  most  emi- 
nent scholar  of  his  time,   as  with  sublime  simplicity,  humility,  and 

% 

*  Published  in  the  "  British  Reformers"  of  the  London  Religious  Tract 
Society.      Caitiff was  the  common  appellation  of  a  person  in  the  lower  ranks. 


wickliffe's  writings  for  the  people.  51 

sweetness,  he  speaks  to  the  neglected  and  degraded  poor,  these  heav- 
enly words  of  instruction  and  consolation.  They  are  the  best  refuta- 
tion of  the  malevolent  charge  that  his  influence  tended  to  popular  dis- 
order.    Two  or  three  passages  must  suffice  here. 

"  To  any  degree  of  true  love  to  Jesus,  no  soul  can  attain  unless  he 
be  truly  meek.  For  a  proud  soul  seeks  to  have  his  own  will,  and  so 
he  shall  never  come  to  any  degree  of  God's  love.  Even  the  lower 
that  a  soul  sitteth  in  the  valley  of  meekness,  so  many  the  more  streams 
of  grace  and  love  come  thereto.  And  if  the  soul  be  high  in  the  hills 
of  pride,  the  wind  of  the  fiend  bloweth  away  all  manner  of  goodness 
therefrom."  "  Singular  love  is,  when  all  solace  and  comfort  is  closed 
out  of  the  heart  but  the  love  of  Jesus  alone.  Other  delight  or  other 
joy  pleases  not  ;  for  the  sweetness  of  him  is  so  comforting  and  lasting, 
his  love  is  so  burning  and  gladdening,  that  he  who  is  in  this  degree 
may  well  feel  the  fire  of  love  burning  in  his  soul.  That  fire  is  so 
pleasant  that  no  man  can  tell  but  he  that  feeleth  it,  and  not  fully  he. 
Then  the  soul  is  Jesus  loving,  on  Jesus  thinking,  and  Jesus  desiring, 
onlv  burning  in  coveting  of  him  ;  singing  in  him,  resting  on  him. 
Then  the  thought  turns  to  song  and  melody."  "  God  playeth  with 
his  child  when  he  suffereth  him  to  be  tempted  ;  as  a  mother  rises  from 
her  much  beloved  child,  and  hides  herself  and  leaves  him  alone,  and 
suffers  him  to  cry,  Mother,  Mother,  so  that  he  looks  about,  cries  and 
weeps  for  a  time  ;  and  at  last,  when  the  child  is  ready  to  be  overset 
with  troubles  and  weeping,  she  comes  again,  clasps  him  in  her  arms, 
kisses  him  and  wipes  away  the  tears.  So  our  Lord  suffereth  his  loved 
child  to  be  tempted  and  troubled  for  a  time,  and  withdraweth  some  of 
his  solace  and  full  protection,  to  see  what  his  child  will  do  ;  and 
when  he  is  about  to  be  overcome  by  temptations,  then  he  defendeth 
him  and  comforteth  him  by  his  grace." 

These  writings  were  the  text-books  of  piety  to  the  persecuted 
Church  of  Christ,  for  more  than  a  hundred  years  ;  and  next  to  the 
English  Bible,  were  the  most  efficient  agency  in  molding  its  opinions 
and  character,  and  in  making  ready,  against  the  happier  times  to 
come,  a  people  for  the  Lord.  They  often  had  the  honor  of  being 
cast  with  the  inspired  word  into  the  flames,  or  of  mingling  their  ashes 
with  those  of  the  martyr,  convicted  of  having  read  and  believed  their 
words,  on  whose  faithful  bosom  they  had  been  hung  as  a  mark  of 
shame.  So  largely  were  they  multiplied,  and  so  sacredly  treasured  by 
the  people,  that  after  a  century  and  a  half  of  rigid  proscription  and 
destruction,  it  Was  found  no  very  difficult  matter  to  make  entire  col- 
lections of  these  writings. 


CHAPTER    IX. 


THE    FIRST    ENGLISH    BIBLE. 


But  Wickliffe's  great  work  for  the  people  was  not  yet  done.  The 
labors  just  narrated,  though  in  themselves  inestimable,  were  but  the 
pioneers  of  one  infinitely  more  important  ;  but  voices,  crying  through 
the  waste  places  of  England,  "  Prepare  ye  the  way  of  the  Lord  !"  This 
crowning  work,  even  now  progressing  amid  the  hurry  and  pressure  of 
his  other  toils,  was  the  Translation  of  the  entire  Scriptures  of 
the  Old  and  New  Testaments  into  the  English  tongue. 

There  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  this  was  a  new  idea  to  Wick- 
liffe's mind.  In  the  nature  of  the  case  it  could  hardly  be  so.  From 
the  very  beginning  of  his  career,  we  have  seen  him  vindicating  the 
supreme  authority  of  the  Scriptures  against  that  of  the  self-styled 
Church.  His  appeal  was  ever  to  "  the  Law  and  the  Testimony." 
"Whoever  spoke  not  according  to  this  word,"  though  it  were  the 
infallible  Head  of  Christendom,  "  there  .was  no  light  in  him."  In  his 
efforts  to  enlighten  the  laity,  the  need  of  the  inspired  standard  of 
truth,  in  their  own  language,  must  have  pressed  itself  upon  him  with 
increasing  weight.  We  find,  accordingly,  that  even  during  the  hurry 
of  his  public  life,  he  had  found  leisure  to  prepare,  from  time  to  time, 
translations  of  single  portions  of  the  New  Testament,  in  connection 
with  expositions,  for  the  use  of  the  people.  In  the  prologues  to  these 
woiks,  the  propriety  and  duty  of  giving  the  Scriptures  to  the  laity,  in 
their  mother  tongue,  is  claimed  in  the  most  explicit  manner.  Thus, 
in  the  prologue  to  Luke,  he  says  :*  "  Therefore  a  poor  caitiff,  let 
from  preaching  for  a  time  for  causes  known  of  God,  writeth  the  Gos- 
pel of  Luke  in  English,  with  a  short  exposition  of  old  and  holy  doc- 
tors, to  the  poor  men  of  his  nation,  which  know  little  Latin  or  none, 
and  be  poor  of  wit  and  worldly  chattel  and,  natheless,  rich  of  good 
will  to  please  Gcd. — Thus,  with  God's  grace,  poor  Christian  men  may 
somedeal  know  the  text  of  the  Gospel,  with  the  common  sentence  of 
old,  holy  doctors,  and  therein  know  the  meek  and  poor  and  charitable 
living  of  Christ  and  his  apostles,  to  sue  them  in  virtues  and  in  bliss  ; 
and  also  know  the  proud  and  covetous  and  veniable  living  of  Anti- 

*  Preface  to  Wickliffe's  Hible. 


THE   FIRST   ENGLISH   BIBLE.  53 

christ  and  his  followers,  to  flee  them  and  their  cursed  deeds,  and 
pains  of  hell.  For,  no  doubt,  as  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  and  his  apos- 
tles profess  plainly,  Antichrist  and  his  cursed  disciples  should  come, 
and  deceive  many  men  by  hypocrisy  and  tyranny  ;  and  the  best  armor 
of  christian  men  against  this  cursed  chieftain  with  his  host,  is  the  text 
of  holy  writ.  Christ  Jesus,  for  thine  endless  power,  mercy,  and 
charity,  make  thy  blessed  law  known  and  kept  of  thy  people. 
Amen,  good  Lord  Jesus  !"  So  in  his  pro- 
logue to  John's  Gospel  :  "  Our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  very'  God  and 
very  man,  came  to  serve  poor,  meek  men,  and  to  teach  them  the  Gos- 
pel ;  and  for  this  cause  St.  Paul  saith  that  he  and  other  apostles  of 
Christ  be  servants  of  christian  men  by  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  And 
he  saith  also,  I  am  debtor  to  wise  men  and  unwise  ;  and,  Bear  ye  the 
charges  of  one  another,  and  so  ye  shall  fill  the  law  of  Christ.  There- 
fore a  simple  creature  of  God,  willing  to  bear,  in  part,  the  charges  of 
simple  poor  men  well  willing  in  God's  cause,  writeth  a  short  gloss  in 
English  on  the  Gospel  of  John." 

These  earlier  translations  mark  a  tendency  in  Wickliffe's  mind, 
which  could  hardly  fail  to  expand,  under  favorable  circumstances, 
into  the  purpose  to  give  the  whole  Bible  to  his  countrymen.  Accord- 
ingly, from  the  period  of  his  retirement  from  Oxford,  the  right  of  the 
laity  to  the  Scriptures  forms  a  prominent  subject  in  his  writings  ;  and 
is  vindicated  with  a  noble  confidence  in  divine  truth,  and  in  the  intel- 
ligence and  honesty  of  the. common  mind,  which  some  modern  Prot- 
estants would  do  well  to  study.  The  following  paragraph  is  worthy 
of  being  written  in  letters  of  gold  :  "  As  the  faith  of  the  Church  is 
contained  in  the  Scriptures,  the  more  these  are  known  in  their  true 
meaning  the  better ;  and  inasmuch  as  secular  men  should  assuredly 
understand  the  faith  they  profess,  that  faith  should  be  taught  them  in 
whatever  language  may  be  best  known  to  them.  Forasmuch,  also,  as 
the  doctrines  of  our  faith  are  more  clearly  and  exactly  expressed  in 
the  Scriptures,  than  they  may  probably  be  by  priests — seeing,  if  I  may 
so  speak,  that  many  prelates  are  but  too  ignorant  of  Holy  Scripture, 
while  others  conceal  many  parts  of  it  ;  and  as  the  verbal  instructions 
of  priests  have  many  other  defects — the  conclusion  is  abundantly  man- 
ifest, that  believers  should  ascertain  for  themselves  what  are  the  true 
matters  of  their  faith,  by  having  the  Scriptures  in  a  language  which 
they  fully  understand.  For  the  laws  made  by  prelates  are  not  to  be 
received  as  matters  of  faith,  nor  are  we  to  confide  in  their  public 
instructions,  nor  in  any  of  their  words,  but  as  they  are  founded  on 
Holy  Writ — since  the  Scriptures  contain  the  whole  truth.  And  this 
translation  of  them  into   English  should  therefore  do   at  least   this 


54  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

good,  viz. :  placing  bishops  and  priests  above  suspicion  as  to  the  parts 
of  it  which  they  profess  to  explain.  Other  means,  such  as  the  friars, 
prelates,  the  pope,  may  all  prove  defective  ;  and  to  provide  against 
this,  Christ  and  his  Apostles  evangelized  the  greater  portion  of  the 
world,  by  making  known  the  Scriptures  to  the  people  in  their  own 
language.  To  this  end,  indeed,  did  the  Holy  Spirit  endow  them  with 
the  knowledge  of  tongues.  Why,  then,  should  not  the  living  disci- 
ples of  Christ  do  in  this  respect  as  they  did  ?" 

The  realization,  for  his  own  countrymen,  of  this  manifest  purpose 
of  God  in  respect  to  all  nations,  now  became  the  leading  object  of 
Wickliffe's  efforts.  Calling  in  the  assistance  of  the  ripest  scholars 
among  his  followers,  he  prosecuted  the  task  with  such  vigor,  that,  in 
the  year  1384,  the.  entire  translation  was  completed.  The  forge  in  the 
old  rectory  study  must  have  glowed  day  and  night  during  this  period  ; 
and  yet,  in  such  consummate  silence  did  the  hallowed  labor  proceed, 
that  it  was  doing  its  work  among  the  people  before  its  existence  was 
suspected  by  the  clergy.  The  yell  of  rage  with  which  they  greeted  its 
appearance,  betrayed  their  consciousness  that  the  ancient  foundations 
of  their  power  were  shaken. 

This  ancient  version  was  not,  indeed,  made  from  the  original 
sources — the  Hebrew  and  Greek  Scriptures.  No  copies  of  these 
existed  at  that  time  in  all  western  Europe.  Through  converted  Jewish 
scholars,  a  slight  interest  in  the  study  of  Hebrew  had  already  been 
awakened  on  the  continent  ;  but  this  had  not  yet  extended  to  Eng- 
land. It  had  fared  even  worse  with  the  Greek  language,  which  was 
now  as  unknown  on  the  island  as  though  it  had  never  had  an  exist- 
ence. 

In  making  his  version  from  the  Latin  Vulgate,  Wickliffe,  therefore, 
only  submitted  to  a  necessity.  It  is  matter  of  thankfulness  that,  in 
the  absence  of  the  original  Scriptures,  so  good  a  representative  of 
them*  should  have  been  within  his  reach.  Jerome,  who  was  the  first 
Biblical  scholar  of  his  age,  was  thoroughly  acquainted  with  both 
Greek  and  Hebrew  ;  and  his  version,  being  executed  in  the  fourth 
century,  was  based  on  manuscripts  older,  by  several  centuries,  than 
those  to  which  later  English  translators  had  access.  Hence,  in  not  a 
few  instances,  Wickliffe's  translation  gives  the  true  meaning  of  a  pas- 
sage, where  its  successors  failed  to  do  so.     But,  on  the  other  hand, 

*  "  The  Vulgate,"  says  the  learned  and  judicious  Dr.  George  Campbell,  "  is, 
in  the  main,  a  good  and  faithful  version."  In  reference  to  the  accusation  that  it 
favors  Popery,  he  adds  :  "  Could  this  point  be  evinced  in  a  satisfactory  manner, 
it  would  allow  more  to  Popery,  on  the  score  of  antiquity,  than,  in  my  opinion, 
she  is  entitled  to." 


THE   FIRST   ENGLISH   BIBLE.  55 

the  disadvantages  of  translating  from  a  translation,  especially  in  the 
case  of  a  book  so  ancient  and  so  peculiar  as  the  Bible,  are  of  a  very 
serious  character.  The  copy  follows  the  model  in  its  errors  as  well  as 
its  excellencies.  Some  portions  of  the  Vulgate  were  executed  with 
unpardonable  haste  ;  and  in  many  points,  Jerome  was  deterred  from 
doing  justice  to  his  own  scholarship,  by  tne  storm  of  calumny  and 
abuse  brought  upon  him  by  his  deviations  from  the  defective  versions 
then  in  popular  use.  In  such  cases  there  was  no  help  for  Wickliffe, 
except  where  Jerome  was  courageous  enough  to  protest  against  his 
own  translation  in  his  notes.  In  the  course  of  ten  centuries,  more- 
over, the  text  of  the  Vulgate  itself  had  suffered  much  from  the  care- 
lessness or  the  arbitrary  alterations  of  its  monkish  transcribers  ;  and 
though  repeated  attempts  had  been  made  for  restoring  it,  the  Latin 
Bibles  of  the  fourteenth  century  were  far  from  being  a  perfect  repre- 
sentation of  the  original  work.  It  is  plain  that  a  version  executed 
under  these  circumstances  could  only  serve  a  temporary  purpose,  and 
must  give  place  to  another  when  the  advance  of  learning  should 
restore  the  sacred  originals  to  the  hands  of  Christian  scholars. 

But  Wickliffe's  Bible  has  a  glory  which  cannot  be  affected  by  its 
critical  deficiencies.  Its  appearance  was  the  virtual  settlement  of  the 
great  question  of  Christendom  :  "  Shall  the  people  have  the  Script- 
ures ?"     It  was  the  prophecy  and  the  earnest  of  Protestantism. 

Soon  after  the  completion  of  this  great  work,  Wickliffe  was  sum- 
moned from  the  toils  and  conflicts  of  life.  On  the  29th  of  December, 
1384,  as  he  was  performing  divine  service  in  the  church  at  Lutter- 
worth, he  was  seized  with  paralysis  ;  and  after  lingering  two  or  three 
days  in  a  state  of  unconsciousness,  the  great  soul  which  had  struggled 
so  long  and  so  bravely  against  the  hosts  of  darkness,  awoke  in  the  joy 
of  its  Lord. 

Within  four  years  from  his  death,  a  revision  of  his  translation  was 
given  to  the  public  by  his  most  intimate  pupil  and  friend,  John  Pur- 
vey, being  executed,  no  doubt,  in  obedience  to  his  own  injunctions. 
The  alterations  are  confined  mainly  to  those  portions  of  the  Old  Tes- 
tament ascribed  to  Wickliffe's  chief  coadjutor,  Dr.  Nicholas  Hereford 
— a  good  scholar  according  to  his  age,  but  too  literal  and  stiff  in  his, 
renderings.  The  remaining  books  of  the  Old  Testament,  and  the 
whole  of  the  New,  were  touched  with  caution,  and  retained  almost 
unchanged  the  first  impress  of  the  master-hand. 


CHAPTER    X. 

INFLUENCE    OF    WICKLIFFE's    VERSION. 

From  the  nations  speaking  the  English  tongue,  Wickliffe's  version 
has  claims  to  grateful  reverence,  which  have  never  yet  been  fully  ap- 
preciated. England's  first  Bible,  it  was,  for  a  hundred  and  thirty 
years,  her  only  one.  Not  only  so,  but  it  constituted  her  earliest  popu- 
lar literature.  For,  with  the  exception  of  Wickliffe's  own  writings,  it 
was  the  first  book  of  any  magnitude  ever  written  in  the  English  lan- 
guage. The  noble  Saxon  of  our  forefathers,  displaced  at  the  Con- 
quest, by  Latin  as  the  language  of  books,  and  by  Norman-French  as 
that  of  polite  life,  became  the  badge  of  degradation  and  servitude. 
The  English  into  which  it  gradually  changed,  by  a  mixture  with  Latin 
and  French,  had,  in  process  of  time,  so  far  regained  the  ancient  rights 
of  the  vernacular,  as  to  be,  at  this  period,  the  spoken  language  of  the 
great  body  of  the  people.  Yet  in  such  contempt  was  it  still  held,  that 
scarcely  an  attempt  had  been  made  to  use  it  in  composition,  till  Wick- 
liffe,  with  his  great  heart  of  love  for  the  people,  laid  hold  of  it  as  the 
vehicle  of  religious  instruction.  He  took  the  rude  elements  directly 
from  the  lips  of  the  despised  ploughmen,  mechanics,  and  tradesmen. 
He  gave  it  back  to  them  in  all  its  unadorned,  picturesque  simplicity, 
but  fused  by  the  action  of  his  powerful  mind  into  a  fitting  instrument 
of  thought,  and  enriched  with  the  noblest  literature  which  the  world 
has  produced  ;  the  utterances  of  inspired  poets,  prophets,  and  apos- 
tles, the  inimitable  histories,  narratives,  and  portraitures,  through 
which  divine  wisdom  has  told  the  sublime  story  of  providence  and  re- 
demption. 

What  seeds  were  those  then  sown  in  the  virgin  soil  of  the  common 
English  mind  !  What  must  have  been  the  quickening  of  intellectual 
life,  in  a  community  where  the  Book  of  books  furnished  almost  the 
only  aliment  of  the  hungry  soul  !  Were  not  the  children  eager  to  read 
for  themselves  those  wondrous  stories  ?  Did  not  the  ear  of  age  forget 
its  deafness,  to  hear  the  glad  tidings  of  a  Saviour  and  a  future  rest  ? 
Would  not  a  new  consciousness  of  worth  steal  into  the  soul  of  the  rude 
clown,  when  he  learned  what  God  had  done  to  redeem  him  ?  The 
more  deeply  we  enter  into  the  circumstances  and  spirit  of  the  times, 
the  stronger  will  grow  the  conviction  that  this  first  English  Bible  must 


INFLUENCE   OF   WICKLIFFE'S   VERSION.  57 

have  been  like  an  awakening  breath  from  heaven,  the  beginning  of 
days  to  the  common  people  of  England. 

As  has  been  remarked  before,  no  book  before  the  invention  of 
printing  ever  had  such  advantages  for  becoming  widely  known. 
Wickliffe,  the  great  practical  reformer,  with  his  thorough  knowledge 
of  all  classes  of  English  society,  had  not  urged  through  this  gigantic 
task  as  a  mere  experiment.  He  had  his  eye  on  a  definite,  practicable 
result,  the  means  for  accomplishing  which  were  in  his  own  hands. 
Aside  from  the  demand  for  the  Scriptures,  excited  by  his  general  influ- 
ence during  a  long  public  career,  he  had  at  command  one  of  the  most 
effective  agencies  of  modern  publication.  The  active,  hardy,  itinerant 
preachers  whom  he  had  sent  out  to  proclaim,  by  word  of  mouth,  glad 
tidings  to  the  poor,  who  had  threaded  every  part  of  England,  and  be- 
come intimately  acquainted  with  the  character  and  wants  of  its  popu- 
lation, now  formed  a  band  of  colporteurs  for  the  written  word. 
They  knew  in  what  far-off  hamlets  pious  souls  were  counting  the  days 
to  the  return  of  their  missionary,  and  pining  for  the  bread  of  life  ; 
what  thinking  merchants  and  tradesmen  in  the  great  towns,  what  hon- 
orable men  and  women  among  the  country  gentry  were  eager  to  search 
the  Scriptures,  whether  these  things  were  so.  Several  copyists,  no 
doubt,  had  kept  pace  with  the  progress  of  the  translation  ;  and  as  fast 
as  a  few  chapters,  or  a  book  was  completed,  these  faithful  agents 
would  make  known  the  priceless  treasure  in  the  homes  of  the  people. 
Many  a  touching  scene  might  be  imagined,  of  rustic  groups  by  the 
wayside,  in  the  church-yard,  or  around  the  peat  fire  at  evening,  listen- 
ing for  the  first  time  to  the  words  of  the  Bible  in  their  mother  tongue. 
Then,  how  would  the  beautifully  written  manuscript  be  passed  round, 
from  hand  to  hand,  to  be  admired  and  wondered  at  ;  and  not  seldom 
to  be  wet  with  tears  from  eyes  that  beheld  for  the  first  time,  in  English 
characters,  the  name  of  Jesus  !  Nor  would  the  missionary  be 
suffered  to  depart,  before  a  copy,  of  at  least  some  portion,  had  been 
obtained.  If  no  professional  copyist  was  to  be  found,  hands  all  un- 
used to  the  labor  of  the  pen  would  scrawl  painfully  a  rude  transcript 
of  a  Psalm,  of  the  Ten  Commandments,  a  few  chapters  of  the  Gos- 
pels, or  of  Paul's  epistles,  to  remain  as  a  lamp  of  heavenly  light,  when 
the  living  preacher  had  departed.  It  is  a  fact  of  intensest  irfterest  and 
significance,  that  numerous  fragments  of  this  kind  were  subsequently 
found  among  the  Lollards.  True,  a  large  majority  of  the  middle  and 
lower  ranks  must  have  depended  for  their  knowledge  of  the  holy 
oracles  on  the  ear  alone.  But  when  the  memory  is  little  occupied, 
and  the  heart  writes  the  lesson  on  its  tablets,  much  of  the  very  lan- 
guage of  Scripture    may  even  thus    be  handed    down,  unimpaired, 


58  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

through  successive  generations.  The  truth  of  this  is  abundantly  veri- 
fied in  the  history  of  Wickliffe's  later  followers,  as  sketched  in  the 
second  part  of  this  work. 

When  first  sent  abroad,  moreover,  the  version  enjoyed  the  sunshine 
of  royal  favor,  in  the  person  of  Anne  of  Bohemia,  the  accomplished 
wife  of  Richard  II.,  who  was  herself  a  devoted  student  and  advocate 
of  the  Scriptures.  Though  she  was  soon  withdrawn  by  death,  yet  in 
the  providence  of  God,  nearly  twenty  years  elapsed  before  its  progress 
was  materially  checked  by  persecution.  It  needs  no  documents  to 
assure  us  that  during  this  period,  copies  must  have  been  rapidly  mul- 
tiplied and  diffused  far  and  wide  over  England.  The  hundred  and 
seventy  copies,  more  or  less  complete,  which  have  come  down  to  our 
own  time,  are  the  index  of  many  times  that  number  which  perished  by 
use,  by  accident,  or  by  the  flames  of  Romish  bonfires. 

But  we  have  more  direct  evidence  ;  the  testimony  of  contemporane- 
ous opposers  of  vernacular  translations.  The  language  of  Knyghton, 
a  distinguished  writer  of  the  Romish  Church,  recognizes  the  firm  hold 
it  had  secured  of  the  public  mind,  but  a  short  time  after  the  death  of 
the  translator.  "  The  Gospel,"  says  he,  "  which  Christ  committed 
to  the  clergy  and  doctors  of  the  Church,  that  they  might  siveetly  dis- 
pense it  to  the  laity,  according  to  the  exigency  of  the  times  and  the 
wants  of  men,  this  Master  John  Wickliffe  has  translated  into  the 
Anglic  (not  Angelic)  *  tongue  ;  thereby  making  it  more  open  and 
common  to  the  laity,  and  to  women  who  can  read,  than  formerly  it 
was  to  the  best  instructed  among  the  clergy.  And  thus  the  Gospel 
pearl  is  cast  forth,  and  is  trodden  under  foot  of  swine  ;  and  what  was 
once  reverenced  by  clergy  and  laity  is  become,  as  it  were,  the  common 
jest  of  both  ;  and  the  jewel  of  the  clergy,  their  peculiar  treasure,  is 
made  forever  common  to  the  laity." 

The  rapid  spread  among  all  classes  of  the  laity,  of  Wickliffe's  senti- 
ments in  regard  to  the  Papacy,  fully  justified  the  apprehensions  of  the 
clergy.  The  House  of  Commons  was  so  infected  with  the  dangerous 
principles  of  religious  liberty,  as  to  render  it  a  very  uncomfortable  in- 
strument to  manage  ;  and  even  among  the  nobles  a  considerable  num- 
ber took  decided  ground  on  the  same  side.  The  dreaded  weapon  of 
ridicule  came  freely  into  play  in  the  conflict,  and  did  its  usual  execu- 
tion. Pasquinades,  satirizing  the  ignorance  and  vices  of  the  clergy, 
were  posted  up  at  St.  Paul's,  and  other  public  places,  and  were  soon 
in  the  mouths  of  the  whole  populace. 

'  *  A  taunt  upon  the  despised  vernacular,  as  too  rude  and  uncouth  for  such  a 
purpose. 


INFLUENCE   OF   WICKLIFFE  S   VERSION.  59 

Had  the  tide  of  popular  feeling  received  no  check,  the  emancipation 
of  England  from  the  Papal  yoke  might  have  been  anticipated  by  more 
than  a  century.  But  the  Reformation  would  probably  have  been  to  a 
fatal  degree  unsound  and  superficial.  There  was  first  a  work  to  be 
done  in  the  nation's  heart. 

In  1395,  during  Richard's  absence  for  the  conquest  of  Ireland,  the 
aspect  of  public  opinion  became  so  alarming  that  the  prelates  dis- 
patched messengers  entreating  his  return  without  delay.  "  As  soon," 
says  a  contemporary  popish  historian,  "  as  he  heard  the  report  of  the 
commissioners,  being  inspired  by  the  Divine  Spirit,  he  hastened  back, 
thinking  it  more  necessary  to  defend  the  Church  than  to  conquer  king- 
doms." His  stringent  measures  toward  the  offending  nobles  soon 
reduced  them  to  submission  ;  many  others,  of  course,  followed  in  their 
wake,  and  the  cause  exchanged  the  prestige  of  success  and  distin- 
guished patronage  for  the  humiliation  of  defeat.  When,  in  1399, 
Henry  IV.,  son  of  the  Duke  of  Lancaster,  Wickliffe's  former  friend, 
succeeded  to  the  throne,  the  hopes  of  the  party  revived.  But  Henry's 
title  needed  the  support  of  the  clergy,  and  the  price  of  their  aid  was 
the  sacrifice  of  the  cause  of  which  both  his  father  and  himself  had 
once  been  advocates.  His  first  act  was  to  send  a  messenger  to  an 
ecclesiastical  assembly,  then  in  session  at  St.  Paul's,  "  begging  the 
prayers  of  the  Church  for  the  King  and  kingdom,  and  promising  that 
he  would  protect  the  clergy  in  all  their  liberties  and  immunities,  and 
assist  them  with  all  his  power  in  exterminating  heretics."  He  kept 
his  word  but  too  faithfully. 

It  was  a  bitter  but  wholesome  disappointment.  The  political  enthu- 
siasm, that  mere  transient  reflection  of  the  true  light  from  worldly 
minds,  soon  died  out  under  the  cruel  persecutions  which  followed  ; 
but  the  religious  principle  grew  strong  in  the  good  and  honest  hearts 
who  loved  the  truth  because  it  was  of  God.  During  the  next  quarter 
of  a  century,  "the  flower  of  martyrdom,"  of  which  Wickliffe  had 
spoken,  was  won  by  a  noble  line  of  Christian  heroes,  representing 
widely  separated  classes  of  society.  Thomas  Badby,  the  tailor  ;  John 
Claydon,  the  farrier  ;  Thorpe  and  Sawtree,  the  learned  clergymen  ; 
Cobham,  the  mirror  of  chivalry  and  manly  piety,  stand  side  by  side, 
as  equal  champions  for  the  faith  of  Christ  ;  while  a  multitude  endured 
trials  of  cruel  mockings,  and  scourgings,  and  imprisonment  in  loath- 
some dungeons,  whose  names  are  lost  on  earth. 

Throughout  this  period,  the  books  of  Wickliffe,  and  especially  his 
translation  of  the  Bible,  are  recognized  as  the  grand  source  of  heresy. 
The  statute  of  1401,  procured  by  Archbishop  Arundel,  made  the 
possession  of  any  of  his  writings  punishable  by  death  at  the  stake.     In 


60  ENGLISH   BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

1408,  it  was  decreed  by  the  clergy  in  convocation  assembled,  "  that 
no  schoolmaster  should  hereafter  mix  religious  instruction  with  the 
teaching  of  youth,  nor  permit  discussion  about  the  sacraments,  nor 
the  reading  of  the  Scriptures  in  EngHsh  ;  that  books  of  this  sort, 
written  by  John  Wickliffe,  and  others  of  his  time,  should  be  banished 
from  schools,  halls,  and  all  places  whatsoever  ;  that  no  man  hereafter 
should  translate  any  part  of  Scripture  into  English  on  his  own 
authority  ;  and  that  all  persons  convicted  of  making  or  using  such 
translations  should  be  punished  as  favorers  of  error  and  heresy."  In 
141 7,  the  right  of  sanctuary  allowed  to  the  highway  robber  and  mur- 
derer, was  denied  by  a  formal  act  of  parliament,  to  men  whose  only 
crime  was  that  of  reading  the  Scriptures  in  English.  What  better 
proof  than  these  measures  could  be  asked,  of  the  wide  diffusion  and 
influence  of  Wickliffe's  Bible  ?  Under  the  action  of  the  statute  last 
mentioned,  so  many  were  implicated  in  London  and  elsewhere,  and  so 
serious  were  the  confiscations  of  property,  that  the  King  himself  (Henry 
V.)  was  obliged  to  interpose,  and  hold  the  officers  of  the  law  in  check 
by  royal  authority. 

During  the  political  agitations  of  the  reign  of  Henry  VI.,  public  at- 
tention was  effectually  diverted  from  religious  controversy,  and  the 
Lollards  gradually  disappear  from  the  page  of  history.  A  night  of 
ignorance,  priestly  tyranny,  superstition  and  social  disorder,  a  night 
whose  gross  darkness  was  hardly  equalled  by  any  that  had  preceded 
it,  settled  down  on  England.  But  the  followers  of  Wickliffe  were  not 
extinct,  nor  had  the  Book  perished  whence  they  drew  their  life. 
Driven  from  the  higher  classes,  truth  had  taken  refuge  among  the  un- 
noticed poor,  and  in  silence  and  obscurity  was  nurturing  the  influ- 
ences which  were  to  ensure  her  triumph  in  the  happier  times  to  come. 
The  light  which  Wickliffe  had  kindled,  often  smothered,  then  hidden 
from  public  view,  but  never  for  a  moment  extinguished,  at  length 
mingled  its  beams  with  the  full  day  of  the  Reformation. 

But  this  ancient  version  has  yet  another  claim  on  our  r*egard.  It 
furnished,  for  all  time,  the  type  and  pattern  of  The  English  Bible. 
In  the  century  and  a  half  during  which  it  was  the  well-spring  of  the 
religious  life  of  England — that  long,  dark  day,  when  persecution  kept 
the  flock  of  Christ  fast  by  the  source  of  strength  and  consolation — its 
homely,  child-like,  expressive  phraseology  had  become  too  deeply  hal- 
lowed in  the  English  mind  as  the  medium  of  inspiration,  ever  again  to 
be  dissevered  from  it.  A  comparison  with  the  subsequent  versions 
which  have  found  favor  with  the  common  people,  will  show  them  to 
be,  in  this  respect,  all  offsprings  of  this  parent-stock.  Improved  in 
many  important  particulars,  so  as  to  reflect  with  greater  exactness  the 


INFLUENCE   OF   WICKLIFFE'S   VERSION.  6 1 

sense  of  the  inspired  originals,  they  are  yet  substantially,  in  form  and 
manner,  but  reproductions  of  that  in  which  our  unlettered  forefathers 
first  read  the  revelation  of  God.  Nay,  I  think  it  will  be  the  feeling  of 
many  readers,  that,  while  they  are  thus  superior  in  correctness  and  in 
adaptation  to  more  cultivated  periods  ;  yet,  in  graphic,  nervous  force, 
in  a  certain  untamed  vigor,  and  a  raciness  of  flavor  which  belongs  to 
the  youth  of  language,  the  patriarchal  version  has  never  been  quite 
equalled.  It  was,  to  use  Lord  Bacon's  beautiful  illustration  of  a  kin- 
dred point,  "  the  first  crush  of  the  grape."  When,  moreover,  we  re- 
mark how  intelligible  it  remains  to  the  present  day,  how  much  more 
near  is  its  phraseology  to  our  own  language  of  common  life  than  that 
even  of  Chaucer,  we  can  hardly  avoid  the  conclusion  that  it  was  this 
book,  pre- eminently,  which  gave  shape  and  fashion  to  our  mother 
tongue,  and  by  its  continually  increasing  spread,  gradually  molded 
into  permanent  uniformity  the  language  of  the  people. 

Thus,  in  a  threefold  sense,  did  England's  first  Bible  become  the 
central  point  of  English  history.  The  tree  which  Wickliffe  planted 
has  clasped  with  its  ever-lengthening  roots  the  life  of  five  centuries. 


CHAPTER   XI. 


WICKLIFFE  S    INFLUENCE    ABROAD. 


But  it  was  not  in  England  alone  that  Wickliffe's  influence  was  felt, 
on  the  errors  of  the  age.  The  religious  interests  of  Bohemia  lay  near 
the  heart  of  the  enlightened  and  pious  Queen  Anne  ;  and  under  her 
auspices  the  Reformer's  writings  had  early  been  carried,  in  great 
numbers,  into  her  native  country.  His  opinions  were  received  with 
favor  by  the  reigning  king  and  queen,  became  the  subject  of  free  dis- 
cussion in  the  University  of  Prague,  and  spread  widely  among  the 
common  people.  In  the  year  1400,  in  accordance  with  his  great  prin- 
ciple, the  Scriptures  were  translated  into  Bohemian,  making  the  second 
vernacular  translation  of  modern  Europe.*  In  1404,  the  celebrated 
John  Huss  became  a  convert  to  these  views  ;  and  from  his  ardent 
spirit  the  movement  received  an  impulse  which,  within  twenty-five 
years  after  the  death  of  Wickliffe,  had  moved  all  Bohemia  with  his 
sentiments,  and  threatened  an  entire  subversion  of  the  Romish  power. 
The  importance  of  these  events  can  only  be  rightly  estimated,  by  tak- 
ing into  the  account  the  mental  activity  and  force  of  character  which 
distinguished  the  Bohemians  as  a  people,  and  the  high  intelligence  and 
liberality  of  the  nobles.  Prague  was  not  only  the  most  populous, 
wealthy,  and  splendid  city  in  Germany,  but  the  acknowledged  centre 
of  the  arts  and  sciences.  Defection  from  the  Papacy,  at  this  point, 
involved  far  more  than  the  loss  of  Bohemia.  A  light  kindled  on  this 
eminence  must  shine  far  and  wide  over  the  surrounding  nations. 

In  1408  the  Archbishop  of  Prague  seized  and  committed  to  the 
flames  some  two  hundred  volumes  of  the  English  Reformer's  writings. 
These  belonged  mostly  to  members  of  the  University,  and  were,  of 
course,  but  a  small  part  of  the  number  in  the  country,  f  In  1409, 
Pope  Alexander  V.  issued  a  bull  to  the  government  of  Bohemia,  ie- 
quiring  the  suppression,  by  the  most  stringent  methods,  of  all  teaching 
of  Wickliffe's  doctrines.  His  successor,  John  XXIII.,  cited  Huss  to 
appear  before  him  at  Rome  ;  and  this  being  declined,  excommunicated 
him,  and  laid  the  city  of  Prague  under  an  interdict. 

*  This,  though  not  noticed  by  Vaughan  in  his  Life  of  Wickliffe,  is  one  of  the 
most  interesting  events  connected  with  his  labors  and  influence. 
f  Vaughan. 


wickliffe's  influence  abroad.  63 

At  this  crisis,  Jerome  of  Prague  came  forward  to  defend  the  perse- 
cuted reformer,  and  to  sustain  the  cause  for  which  he  suffered.  Je- 
rome had  studied  at  Oxford,  where,  probably,  he  first  imbibed 
Wickliffe's  sentiments  ;  and  in  Paris  he  became  known  as  their  advo- 
cate, in  a  public  controversy  with  the  celebrated  Romish  theologian, 
Gerson.  On  his  return  to  Bohemia  he  was  imprisoned  in  Vienna,  as 
a  favorer  of  Wickliffe's  doctrines  ;  but  was  released  at  the  intercession 
of  the  University  of  Prague,  where  he  was  held  in  the  highest  esteem 
for  his  genius  and  learning.  He  now  stood  forth  boldly,  as  the  leader 
in  the  conflict,  and  took  even  higher  ground  against  the  doctrines  and 
government  of  the  Papal  church  than  Huss  himself.  Opposition  only 
fanned  the  rising  flame  ;  and  the  continual  conflict  of  opinion  led  all 
classes,  more  and  more,  to  a  study  of  the  Holy  Scriptures,  as  the  only 
reliable  standard  of  truth. 

Things  were  in  this  condition  when  the  famous  Council  of  Con- 
stance was  assembled,  in  the  city  from  which  it  takes  its  name.  Its 
object  was,  in  part,  the  termination  of  the  scandalous  quarrel  of  the 
three  rival  popes,  which  was  fast  undermining  the  credit  of  St.  Peter's 
chair  ;  in  part,  the  suppression,  by  some  adequate  measures,  of  the 
alarming  growth  of  Wickliffe's  sentiments  in  Christendom.  This 
Council  was  one  of  the  most  imposing  ever  convoked  by  the  Romish 
Church.  It  numbered  among  its  members  and  attendants,  a  German 
Emperor,  twenty  princes,  one  hundred  and  forty  counts,  a  pope,  more 
than  twenty  cardinals,  seven  patriarchs,  twenty  archbishops,  ninety- 
one  bishops,  six  hundred  other  prelates,  and  about  four  thousand 
priests.     Its  deliberations  extended  from  the  year  1414  to  1418. 

The  acts  by  which  this  great  assembly  is  chiefly  known  to  pos- 
terity are  the  deposition  of  three  infallible  popes,  followed  by  the 
election  of  a  fourth  ;  the  burning  of  John  Huss  and  Jerome  at  the 
stake,  and  the  decrees  against  the  writings  of  Wickliffe.  Huss  had 
been  decoyed  to  Constance,  by  the  promise  of  being  allowed  to  defend 
his  opinions  before  the  assembled  clergy  of  Christendom  ;  but,  in  vio- 
lation of  a  safe-conduct  from  the  hand  of  the  Emperor  Sigismund,  he 
was  put  to  death.  In  July,  1415,  Jerome  having  ventured  into  the 
vicinity  in  hope  of  aiding  his  beloved  and  revered  brother,  was  like- 
wise seized,  and  after  a  long  imprisonment,  followed  him  to  the  stake. 
But  the  truth  had  taken  too  deep  root  in  Bohemia  to  perish  by  such 
means.  The  assembled  dignitaries  of  the  Romish  Church  had  beheld, 
with  amazement,  Bohemian  nobles  and  citizens  reasoning  before  them, 
with  no  less  learning  than  boldness,  from  the  word  of  God.  A  cause 
thus  advocated  has  ceased  to  depend  on  leaders. 

John  Wickliffe  had  the  honor  of  being  recognized  by  this  august 


64  ENGLISH   BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

assembly  as  the  source  of  all  the  influences  which  had  thus  turned 
the  world  upside  down.  Among  its  earliest  acts,  fifty-five  articles 
from  his  writings,  which  had  already  been  condemned  in  England, 
Rome,  and  Prague,  now  received  the  solemn  ban  of  the  Council  ;  and 
subsequently,  it  is  said,  two  hundred  and  sixty  more  were  condemned 
in  like  manner.  His  works  of  every  kind,  and  wherever  found,  were 
adjudged  to  the  flames. 

Not  satisfied  with  these  measures,  the  Council,  before  closing,  passed 
a  sentence  on  his  dead  body,  directing  that  it  should  be  disinterred, 
and  burned  to  ashes,  as  an  expression  of  the  abhorrence  in  which  his 
doctrines  and  his  memory  were  held  by  Holy  Church.  The  decree 
was  executed  in  1428,  when  Archbishop  Chichely,  Primate  of  England, 
himself  went  down  to  Lutterworth,  attended  by  a  large  train  of  the 
English  clergy,  to  superintend  the  ceremony.  From  beneath  the 
humble  chancel,  where  they  had  slept  in  peace  more  than  forty  years, 
the  bones  of  the  Reformer  were  dragged  rudely  forth  to  the  light  of 
day  ;  and  being  carried  down  the  hill  on  which  the  church  stood,  to  a 
little  stream  called  the  Swift,  were  there  consumed  by  fire,  and  the 
ashes  thrown  into  the  river. 

The  enemies  of  truth  took  this  as  a  presage  of  the  speedy  and  final 
destruction  of  Wickliffe's  influence.  But  they  were  false  seers. 
"  The  Swift,"  says  quaint  old  Fuller,  "  conveyed  his  ashes  into  the 
Avon,  Avon  into  the  Severn,  Severn  into  the  narrow  seas,  they  to  the 
main  ocean.  And  thus  they  are  the  emblem  of  his  doctrine,  which 
now  is  dispersed  all  the  world  over."  In  Bohemia,  the  progress  of 
his  opinions  was  only  accelerated  by  the  cruel  and  treacherous  dealing 
of  the  Council  ;  and  during  the  entire  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries, 
this  favored  country  exhibited  a  shining  example  of  the  power  of  Bible 
Christianity  to  call  forth  the  energies,  as  well  as  to  exalt  the  morals 
of  a  nation.  Fourteen  translations  of  the  whole  Bible,  besides  ten  of 
the  New  Testament,  which  have  come  down  to  this  day,  bear  witness 
to  the  zeal  of  her  Christian  scholars.  She  had  her  printed  Bible  fifty 
years  before  England.  Education  was  common  to  her  whole  popula- 
tion, and  the  arts  and  sciences  were  brought  to  a  remarkable  perfec- 
tion. When  in  1620,  during  the  progress  of  the  thirty  years'  war, 
Bohemia  lost  her  nationality,  three-fourths  of  her  population  were 
Protestant  ;  and  seventy  thousand  men,  with  nearly  the  whole  nobility, 
the  entire  body  of  the  Protestant' clergy,  scholars,  and  artists,  and  in 
general,  the  most  cultivated  part  of  the  nation,  went  forth  as  volun- 
tary exiles,  preferring  rather  to  renounce  their  country  than  their  re- 
ligion. The  monks  from  Spain,  Italy,  and  Southern  Germany,  who 
ponred  into  the  subjugated  country,  found  it  a  toilsome  labor  to  re- 


wickliffe's  influence  abroad.  65 

store  the  ancient  reign  of  darkness.  Every  Bohemian  book  was  con- 
demned as  presumptively  heretical.  There  were  individuals  who 
boasted  of  having  burned  sixty  thousand  manuscripts,  the  precious 
relics  of  her  early  popular  and  sacred  literature.  Such  works  as  were 
saved  from  the  flames  were  shut  up  in  monasteries,  in  secure  rooms 
guarded  by  iron  grates,  doors,  locks,  bolts,  and  chains,  and  often  in- 
scribed with  the  warning  title,  Hell.  A  clearer  exemplification  of  the 
influence  and  aim  of  the  two  religions  could  hardly  be  found  in  his- 
tory. 

It  is  easy  to  see  what  must  have  been  the  influence  of  this  people, 
during  their  long  period  of  prosperity,  and  how  essentially  it  must 
have  contributed  toward  preparing  the  way  for  the  great  work  of  the 
sixteenth  century.  The  Reformation  of  Huss  flowed  into  that  of  Lu- 
ther ;  and  when  the  latter  reached  England,  its  waters  mingled  with 
that  earlier  stream  whose  sources  we  have  traced  in  the  personal 
labors  of  Wickliffe. 

The  mind  stands  amazed  over  the  view  thus  opened,  of  the  mighty 
consequences  to  mankind  flowing  from  the  life  of  a  single  individual. 
If  anything  could  surprise  us  more,  it  would  be  that  party  spirit  could 
have  caused  such  services  to  humanity  to  be  forgotten,  and  the  very 
existence  of  the  apostle  of  modern  Christianity  to  become  almost  a 
myth  in  the  land  of  his  birth.  But  as  certainly  as  truth  is  to  triumph, 
and  the  last  vestige  of  priestcraft  to  disappear  before  the  light  of  the 
pure  word  of  God,  the  name  of  John  Wickliffe  will  brighten  as  the 
ages  pass,  and  the  beautiful  eulogy  of  the  martyrologist  be  accepted  as 
no  more  than  justice  to  his  character  and  labors  :  "  This  is  out  of  all 
doubt,  that  at  what  time  all  the  world  was  in  most  desperate  and  vile 
estate,  and  that  the  lamentable  ignorance  and  darkness  of  God's  truth 
had  overshadowed  the  whole  earth,  this  man  stepped  out  like  a  valiant 
champion  ;  unto  whom  may  justly  be  applied,  that  is  spoken  in  the 
book  of  Ecclesiasticus,  of  one  Simon,  the  son  of  Onias  :  '  Even  as 
the  morning  star  being  in  the  midst  of  a  cloud,  and  as  the  moon  being 
full  in  her  course,  and  as  the  bright  beams  of  the  sun,  so  doth  he  shine 
and  glister  in  the  temple  and  Church  of  God.'  " 


CHAPTER    XII. 


RELIGIOUS    ASPECTS    OF    ENGLAND. 


A  century  and  a  half  had  now  elapsed  since  Wickliffe  gave  Eng- 
land her  first  Bible.  During  this  whole  period  the  Church,  backed 
by  the  State,  had  made  it  a  steady  aim  to  root  out  the  tendencies 
which  he  had  implanted  in  the  common  English  mind.  Yet,  at  the 
beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century,  we  find  them  still  existing  in  all 
their  living  energy  among  the  Lollards.  The  "  voluntary  system" 
had  proved  adequate  to  the  perpetuation  of  an  order  of  devoted, 
working  ministers,  "  willing  to  endure  all  things  for  the  elect's  sake  ;" 
men,  who  from  pure  love  for  souls,  made  a  joyful  sacrifice  of  worldly 
gain  and  ease,  and  went  forth,  at  the  hazard  of  their  lives,  to  preach 
the  Gospel  to  the  poor.  Many  shires  of  England  were  acquainted 
with  the  toil-worn,  weather-beaten  forms  of  these  humble  apostles  of 
Bible  piety,  and  about  the  time  of  Henry  VIII.'s  accession,  numer- 
ous little  congregations  of  "  Brethren  in  Christ,'''  (so  they  called  them- 
selves), were  existing  in  different  parts  of  the  kingdom  as  the  fruit  of 
their  labors.  Being  almost  wholly  from  the  lower  classes,  and  taught 
by  former  persecutions  to  observe  the  greatest  caution  and  secrecy, 
the  timid  flock  had  grown  and  multiplied  undetected  by  their  powerful 
foes. 

At  this  period  they  seem  to  have  enjoyed  a  fresh  access  of  spiritual 
life.  Thomas  Mann,  one  of  their  preachers,  who  died  for  heresy  in 
1518,  is  reported  in  the  bishop's  record  of  his  trial  as  "confessing 
that  he  hath  turned  seven  hundred  people  to  his  religion  ;  for  which 
he  thanketh  God."  Such  was  their  increase  in  zeal  and  numbers, 
that  they  could  no  longer  escape  observation.  They  were  tracked  to 
the  lonely,  unfrequented  spots  where  they  met  undercover  of  night  to 
worship  God  ;  neighbor  was  made  spy  on  neighbor  ;  husbands  and 
wives,  parents  and  children,  brothers  and  sisters,  were  beguiled  or 
forced  to  bear  witness  against  each  other.  The  Lollards  Tower  again 
echoed  with  the  clanking  of  chains  ;  the  rack  and  the  stake  once  more 
claimed  their  victims.  But  those  dark  days  of  tears  and  blood  have 
left  a  precious  memorial  for  after  times,  furnished  by  the  very  hands 
which  were  striving  to  blot  '  this  pestilent  sect  '  from  the  face  of  the 
earth.     From  the  registers  of  the  bishops,  before  whom  those  accused 


RELIGIOUS    ASPECTS    OF   ENGLAND.  6/ 

of  heresy  were  tried,  has  been  gathered  a  long  list  of  lowly  martyrs 
and  confessors  who,  but  for  these  cruel  persecutors,  would  never  have 
been  heard  of  out  of  the  plebeian  sphere  in  which  they  were  born. 
Nor  do  we  need  any  better  testimony  than  is  furnished  by  these 
records,  to  the  purity  both  of  their  doctrines  and  their  lives.  A  sim- 
ple, blameless  people,  full  of  love  and  good  works,  there  was  nothing 
to  be  found  against  them  "  save  in  the  matter  of  the  law  of  their  God." 

What  strikes  one  with  most  surprise,  in  these  humble  Christians,  is 
the  identity  of  their  views  at  once  with  those  of  Wickliffe  and  his  im- 
mediate followers,  and  with  those  afterward  known  as  the  distinguish- 
ing traits  of  Protestantism.  But  the  solution  is  easy.  It  was  because 
they  all  drew  from  one  and  the  same  source,  the  inspired  word  of 
God.  Through  their  whole  history,  the  living  preacher  and  the  writ- 
ten Scripture  had  gone  hand  in  hand.  There  is  abundant  evidence, 
not  only  that  Wickliffe' s  version  was  still  preserved  among  them,  but 
that  they  had  numerous  copies  of  it  in  whole  or  in  part,  which  were 
diligently  read  by  the  families  of  common  laborers  and  mechanics. 

One  of  the  most  common  charges  against  the  Lollards  of  this  period, 
was  the  possession  of  some  portion  of  Wickliffe's  Bible,  and  the  ability 
to  read  it,  or  to  repeat  from  it  by  heart.  Among  those  "  troubled" 
as  suspected  heretics,  between  the  years  1509  and  15 17,  five  persons 
were  charged  with  having  met  together  secretly  to  read  "  certain  chap- 
ters of  the  Evangelists  in  English,  containing  in  them," — such  was 
the  sentence  of  the  learned  bishops — "  divers  erro?ieous  and  damnable 
opinions  and  conclusiotis  of  heresy.'"  One  Christopher  Shoomaker, 
burned  at  Newbury,  was  accused  of  having  gone  to  the  house  of  John 
Say,  and  "  read  to  him  out  of  a  book,  the  words  which  Christ  spake 
to  his  disciples."  In  15 19  seven  martyrs  were  burned  in  one  fire  at 
Coventry,  "  for  having  taught  their  children  and  servants  the  Lord's 
Prayer  and  Ten  Commandments  in  English."  The  register  of  Long- 
land,  Bishop  of  Lincoln,  for  the  single  year  152 1,  contains  a  list  of 
some  hundred  names,  most  of  whom  were  accused  for  reading  or  repeat- 
ing portions  of  the  Scriptures  in  the  English  language.  Jenkin  Butler 
accused  his  own  brother  of  reading  to  him  a  certain  book  of  Scripture, 
and  persuading  him  to  hearken  to  the  same.  John  Barrett,  goldsmith 
of  London,  was  "  troubled"  for  having  recited  to  his  wife  and  maid 
the  Epistle  of  James  without  book.  John  Thatcher  was  accused  of 
teaching  Alice  Brown  this  saying  of  Jesus  :  '  Blessed  are  they  that 
hear  the  word  of  God  and  keep  it. '  Thomas  Philip  and  Lawrence 
Taylor  were  cited  for  reading  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans  and  the  first 
chapter  of  Luke  in  English.  "  Cuthbert,  Bishop  of  London,  sitting 
judicially  in  the  chapel  within  his  palace,  at  London,  ministered  in 


68  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

word  against  John  Pykas, "  who  confessed  "  that  about  five  years  last 
past,  at  a  certain  time  his  mother,  then  dwelling  at  Bury,  sent  for 
him,  and  moved  him  that  he  should  not  believe  in  the  sacraments  of 
the  Church,  for  that  was  not  the  right  way.  And  then  she  delivered 
to  him  one  book  of  Paul's  Epistles,  in  English  (manuscript)  ;  and  bid 
him  live  after  the  manner  and  way  of  said  Epistles  and  Gospels,  and 
not  after  the  way  the  Church  doth  teach.'  John  Tyball  was  accused 
before  this  same  bishop,  of  having  had  '  certain  of  Paul's  Epistles 
after  the  old  translation.'  In  1529,  John  Tukesbury,  a  respectable 
citizen  and  leather  merchant,  of  the  city  of  London,  confessed  to  hav- 
ing in  his  possession  '  a  manuscript  copy  of  the  Bible,  and  that  he  had 
been  studying  in  the  Holy  Scriptures  from  the  year  15 12.' 

Their  supply  of  Bibles  was  indeed  scanty,  compared  with  that  en- 
joyed since  the  introduction  of  the  press  ;  but  the  lack  was  made  up 
by  an  earnestness  which  could  overcome  all' obstacles.  We  must  not 
judge  of  these  awakened  minds  and  hearts  by  the  general  standard  of 
their  class  at  the  time.  Was  only  a  single  copy  owned  in  a  neighbor- 
hood, these  hard-working  laborers  and  mechanics  would  be  found 
together,  after  a  weary  day  of  toil,  alternately  reading  and  listening  to 
the  words  of  life  ;  and  so  sweet  was  the  refreshment  to  their  spirits, 
that  sometimes  the  morning  light  surprised  them  with  its  call  to  a 
new  day  of  labor,  ere  they  had  thought  of  sleep.  Their  highest  aim 
was  to  become  possessors  of  some  portion  of  the  sacred  volume.  One 
man  among  them  is  mentioned,  as  having  given  a  load  of  hay  for  a 
few  chapters  of  one  of  Paul's  Epistles.  Some  devoted  the  savings  of 
years  to  this  object.  They  have  even  been  known  to  give  a  sum  equal 
to  eight  or  ten  pounds  of  our  time,  for  one  of  those  little  tracts  which 
Wickliffe  wrote  so  long  before,  for  the  instruction  and  comfort  of  the 
pious  poor. 

But  they  were  not  merely  superior  to  their  class.  In  the  intelligence 
of  their  belief,  in  their  sense  of  the  true  worth  and  destiny  of  man, 
in  their  thirst  for  knowledge,  as  well  as  in  purity  of  manners  and  ardor 
of  piety,  they  were,  as  a  body,  in  advance  of  the  highest  ranks  both 
of  clergy  and  laity.  "To  see, "  says  their  faithful  and  affectionate 
historian  Fox,  "  their  travails,  their  earnest  seeking,  their  ardent  zeal, 
their  reading,  their  watching,  their  sweet  assemblies,  their  love  and 
concord,  their  godly  living,  their  faithfully  marrying  with  the  faithful, 
may  make  us  now,  in  these  our  days  of  free  profession,  to  blush  for 
shame."  That  many,  who  bore  the  name  of  Lollards,  failed  in  the 
hour  of  fiery  trial  and  abjured  their  faith,  merely  proves  that  the  influ- 
ence of  their  views  extended  far  beyond  the  bounds  of  the  true  be- 
lievers.    As  a  people,  they  were  the  recognized  advocates,  in  a  period 


RELIGIOUS   ASPECTS   OF   ENGLAND.  69 

of  unsurpassed  darkness  and  slavery  to  priestcraft,  of  the  freedom  of 
the  human  mind,  of  the  rights  of  conscience,  and  of  the  supreme 
authority  of  the  Holy  Scriptures.  To  their  influence  is  doubtless  to 
be  assigned  the  first  place,  among  the  causes  which  led  to  the  English 
Reformation. 

Let  us  turn  now  for  a  moment  to  the  preparation  going  on  in  other 
classes,  for  the  new  epoch  which  was  soon  to  dawn. 

In  all  her  external  relations,  England  was  still  the  most  obedient 
vassal  of  Rome.  Henry  VIII.  ,by  training  a  bigoted  adherent  of  the 
Church,  vied  with  the  "  most  Christian  monarchs"  of  former  times, 
in  humbling  his  kingdom  before  the  papal  footstool.  A  golden  rose, 
touched  by  the  apostolic  finger  with  holy  chrism,  was,  in  his  esteem, 
a  full  equivalent  for  the  rich  English  benefices  which  his  Holiness 
disposed  of  unquestioned  among  his  insatiable  Italians.  At  no  time 
had  the  clergy,  as  a  body,  been  more  ignorant,  more  corrupt,  or  more 
powerful,  or  the  great  mass  of  the  people  more  abject  slaves  of  super- 
stition. 

Still  the  new  day  which  had  dawned  on  continental  Europe  could 
not  be  wholly  shut  out.  Even  before  Luther  had  commenced  his 
reformatory  labors,  a  more  liberal  style  of  learning  had  been  intro- 
duced into  the  English  Universities,  through  the  labors  of  Erasmus 
and  a  few  native  scholars  of  like  spirit.  Greek  professorships  had 
been  established,  the  New  Testament  in  the  original  was  studied  by  a 
considerable  number,  and  public  lectures  were  read  on  some  portions 
of  it.  Hebrew,  also,  received  some  attention.  These  innovations 
were  received  by  the  great  body  of  the  clergy  with  anything  but  favor. 
With  the  quick  instinct  of  birds  of  night,  they  discerned,  far  off,  the 
hated  approach  of  day.  Dr.  John  Collet,  who  nobly  led  the  way  in 
the  new  path,  by  his  lectures  on  Paul's  Epistles  (delivered  at  Oxford 
so  early  as  1497,  "without  fee  or  reward"),  was  interrupted  by  a 
prosecution  for  heresy,  instituted  by  the  Bishop  of  London,  and 
escaped  only  through  the  personal  kindness  of  Archbishop  Warham, 
who  dismissed  the  case  without  trial.  When,  in  15 16,  the  Greek  Tes- 
tament of  Erasmus  made  its  appearance,  a  terrible  hue  and  cry  arose " 
among  the  clergy.  Priests  used  their  influence  at  the  confessional  to 
warn  young  students  against  it,  and  one  college  at  Cambridge  was 
found  so  conservative  as  to  forbid  the  dangerous  book  to  be  brought 
within  its  walls.  Standish,  afterward  Bishop  of  Asaph,*  conjured 
the  king,  on  his  knees,  to  put  down  Erasmus.    The  monks  made  them- 

*  Abbreviated,  Ep.  a  St.  As.  {Episcopus  a  Sancto  Asino,  as  put  by  Erasmus  in 
his  Epistles). 


;o  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

selves  especially  conspicuous  by  the  zeal  of  their  opposition,  declaring 
from  the  pulpit  that  "  there  was  now  a  new  language  invented,  called 
Greek,  of  which  people  should  beware  as  the  source  of  all  heresies  ; 
that  in  this  language  had  come  forth  a  book,  called  the  New  Testa- 
ment, which  was  now  in  everybody's  hands,  and  was  full  of  thorns 
and  briars  ;  that  there  was  also  another  language  started  up  which 
they  called  Hebrew,  and  that  they  who  learned  it  were  turned  Jews." 

"Remember  ye  not, "  says  Tyndale  in  1531  ;  "how  within  this 
thirty  years,  and  far  less,  and  yet  dureth  to  this  day,  the  old  barking 
curs,  Dun's  disciples,  and  the  like  draff,  called  Scottists,  the  children 
of  darkness,  raged  in  every  pulpit  against  Greek,  Latin,  and  Hebrew  ; 
and  what  sorrow  the  schoolmasters  that  taught  the  true  Latin  tongue 
had  with  them  ?  Some  beating  the  pulpit  with  their  fists  for  madness, 
and  roaring  out  with  open  and  foaming  mouth,  that  if  there  were  but 
one  Terence  and  Virgil  in  the  world,  and  that  same  in  their  sleeves, 
and  a  fire  before  them,  they  would  burn  them  therein,  though  it  should 
cost  their  lives." 

But  the  spirit  of  the  age  was  too  strong  to  be  thus  repressed. 
Henry  VIII.  was  himself  ambitious  to  be  known  as  a  scholar  and 
patron  of  learning  ;  and  he  not  only  encouraged  classical  study,  but, 
in  151,9,  commanded  by  a  royal  mandate,  that  the  study  of  the  Scrip- 
tures in  the  original  languages  should  henceforth  constitute  a  regular 
branch  of  academic  instruction  at  Oxford.  His  minister,  Cardinal 
Wolsey,  whose  far-sighted  intellect  perceived  in  the  new  agencies  at 
work  in  the  age,  a  power  which  might  perhaps  be  controlled,  but  could 
never  be  destroyed,  threw  himself  into  the  vanguard  of  the  cause  of 
liberal  learning.  Cardinal's  College,  established  by  him  at  Oxford, 
was  a  magnificent  project  for  converting  progress  itself  into  a  barrier 
against  progress  ;  for  raising  up  a  clergy  qualified  by  rigid  intellectual 
discipline  and  eminent  scholarship,  to  snatch  from  the  reformers  the 
leadership  of  the  awakening  age.  That  college,  he  resolved,  should 
be  "  the  most  glorious  in  the  universe."  To  furnish  it  with  adequate 
,  endowments  he  ejected,  by  his  authority  as  Papal  Legate,  the  inmates 
of  forty-one  priories  and  nunneries,  and  devoted  their  riches  to  Lhis 
object,  sending  forth  their  inmates  to  seek  a  home  in  other  establish- 
ments. The  most  distinguished  teachers  were  called  in  to  add  lustre 
to  the  new  foundation,  and  its  Fellows  were  the  picked  men  of  both 
universities.  It  was  wisely  planned.  But  the  Cardinal,  with  all  his 
sagacity,  had  not  taken  into  the  reckoning  that  the  men  thus  trained 
might  be  the  first  to  desert  the  cause  he  sought  to  uphold.  Cardinal 
College  rose  into  sudden  eminence  as  a  school  of  liberal  learning,  and 
in  the  same  proportion  became  a  nursery  of  the  new  opinions.      Its  ac- 


RELIGIOUS   ASPECTS   OF   ENGLAND.  7 1 

complished  youth,  their  minds  emancipated  by  enlarged  enquiry,  and 
their  hearts  instructed  by  the  Scriptures  in  that  liberty  wherewith 
Christ  makes  free,  devoted  themselves  with  generous  ardor  to  the 
cause  of  truth  and  spiritual  freedom. 

Meanwhile,  the  multiplication  of  books  through  the  press,  by  pro- 
moting general  intelligence,  had  increased  the  disaffection  of  all 
classes  toward  the  Romish  clergy.  Voices  were  heard  to  and  from 
the  people,  in  numerous  little  treatises,  exposing  the  errors  and  vices 
of  the  Church.  The  thunder  of  Luther's  tones  then  came  reverberat- 
ing over  the  water  ;  and,  in  spite  of  the  vigilance  of  the  clergy,  trans- 
lations of  his  writings  were  extensively  circulated  in  England. 

Thus,  long  before  the  quarrel  of  Henry  with  the  Pope  led  to  an 
external  separation  from  Rome,  the  way  had  been  preparing  for  a 
reform  far  more  thorough  and  comprehensive  ;  a  reform  based  on 
radical  changes  in  the  opinions  and  convictions  of  his  subjects.  To 
that  true  reform  he  was  no  less  an  enemy  than  the  Pope  himself  ; 
and  it  worked  its  way  against  the  whole  force  of  his  iron  will.  Its 
first  marked  development,  the  event  which  inaugurated  the  age  of 
Bible  Translation  in  England,  will  form  the  subject  of  the  next 
chapter. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 


TYNDALE  S    NEW    TESTAMENT. 


After  the  view  just  given  of  the  influences  at  work  in  England,  it 
can  be  no  matter  of  surprise,  to  find  the  design  of  a  new  translation 
of  the  Scriptures  already  ripened  in  the  bosom  of  an  English  scholar, 
years  before  Luther  began  the  publication  of  the  Bible  in  German. 
That  scholar  was  William  Tyndale. 

Tyndale  was  born  about  the  year  1484,  and  at  a  very  early  age  was 
sent  to  Oxford,  which  was  one  of  the  most  celebrated  schools  of 
learning  then  existing.  Here  he  soon  attained  high  rank,  and  was 
particularly  distinguished  for  his  knowledge  of  the  tongues.  But 
though  a  proficient  in  classical  literature,  his  most  diligent  study  was 
given  to  the  Greek  New  Testament,  in  which,  also,  he  was  accus- 
tomed to  read  to  his  fellow  students.  There  is  even  strong  reason 
for  believing  that,  while  still  at  the  University  and  before  he  had 
reached  his  twentieth  year,  the  purpose  of  translating  the  Scriptures 
was  already  working  in  his  mind.  An  autograph  collection  in  the 
hands  of  one  of  his  biographers,*  of  translations  made  by  him  of 
select  portions  of  the  New  Testament,  shows  in  its  ornamental, 
missal-like  headings  and  borders,  the  initials  W.  T.,  and  the  date 
1502,  several  times  repeated.  To  the  latter  are  prefixed,  in  one 
instance,  the  significant  words  "  Time  Trieth  ";  as  if  the  youthful 
translator  even  then  had  it  in  view  to  submit  his  labors  to  the  test  of 
publication.  It  is  a  fact  no  less  remarkable  than  interesting,  that 
these  early  attempts  were  transferred,  for  the  most  part  verbatim,  into 
his  complete  New  Testament  ;  and  that  many  passages  have  come 
down  through  the  successive  revisions,  unaltered,  into  our  common 
version  !  Thus  the  bent  of  his  mind,  from  its  first  known  develop- 
ment, marks  him  out  as  a  man  of  earnest  purpose,  who  already  com- 
prehends what  is  his  work  and  calling  in  the  age. 

Still,  however,  he  was  a  member  of  the  Romish  Church,  and  had 
probably  thought  of  nothing  beyond  a  reformation  in  the  existing 
ecclesiastical  institutions.      In   1502,  the  date  already  mentioned,  he 

*  Offor's  Memoir  prefixed  to  Tyndale's  New  Testament.     London,  1836. 


tyndale's  new  testament.  73 

was  ordained  a  priest,  and  in  1508  became  a  friar  in  the  monastery 
at  Greenwich.  We  are  not  informed  of  the  circumstances  which 
induced  him  to  withdraw  from  this  relation  ;  but  in  1522  he  had 
returned  to  his  native  Gloucestershire,  and  was  filling  the  office  of 
private  tutor  and  chaplain  in  a  family  of  rank.  While  here,  he  made 
no  secret  of  his  reformatory  sentiments,  which  soon  became  well 
known  in  the  surrounding  region.  The  hospitable  mansion  of  his 
patron  was  a  favorite  resort  of  the  prelates  and  clergy  of  the  neigh- 
borhood, and  frequent  discussions  arose  at  table  in  respect  to  the 
doctrines  and  measures  of  Luther,  which  were  now  making  much  noise 
in  England.  The  dogmatism  and  deplorable  ignorance  exhibited 
by  the  clerical  visitors  on  these  occasions,  often  drew  from  the  mod- 
est tutor  a  spirited  defence  of  the  Reformer,  and  an  earnest  recom- 
mendation to  test. his  views  by  the  New  Testament.  "  He  spared 
not,"  says  Foxe,  "  to  show  them  simply  and  plainly  his  judgment  ; 
and  when  they  at  any  time  did  vary  from  his  opinions,  he  would  show 
them  in  the  book,  a?id  lay  before  them  the  manifest  places  of  Scripture,  to 
confute  their  errors  and  confirm  his  sayings."  In  these  controversies 
the  dignitaries  were  so  uniformly  mortified  by  defeat,  that  they  grad- 
ually ceased  their  visits;  "preferring,"  as  Fuller  remarks,  "the 
loss  of  Squire  Welch's  good  cheer,  to  the  sour  sauce  of  Master  Tyn- 
dale's company." 

But  if  they  could  not  reason,  they  could  persecute  ;  and  their  ill 
will  soon  exhibited  itself  in  the  citation  of  Tyndale  before  the  chan- 
cellor of  the  diocese,  on  a  charge  of  heresy.  There  was  quite  a  rally 
of  the  clergy  to  witness  his  humiliation.  In  his  own  words,  "  All  the 
priests  of  the  country  were  present  the  same  day."  But  under  some 
influence  not  now  apparent,  the  Chancellor,  after  "  threatening  him 
grievously,  and  reviling  and  rating  him  as  though  he  had  been  a  dog," 
allowed  him  to  depart  without  punishment.  Some  of  his  friends 
counselled  a  prudent  concealment  of  his.  views  in  future;  but  "the 
fire  in  his  bones"  refused  to  be  shut  up.  A  Popish  clergyman  soon 
after  remarked  to  Tyndale,  in  reply  to  an  earnest  plea  for  a  vernacu- 
lar Bible  :  "  We  had  better  be  without  God's  laws  than  the  Pope's  !" 
"  I  defy  the  Pope  and  all  his  laws,"  cried  the  indignant  reformer  ; 
' '  and  if  God  spare  my  life,  ere  many  years  I  will  cause  a  boy  that  driv- 
eth  the  plough  to  know  more  of  the  Scriptures  than  you  do  /"  A  pledge 
which  he  nobly  redeemed  at  the  price  of  exile,  poverty,  a  life  of  toil 
and  persecution,  and  finally  of  a  martyr's  death. 

It  is  interesting  to  remark  how  firmly,  at  this  period,  the  thought 
had  fixed  itself  in  Tyndale's  mind,  that  the  translation  of  the  Scrip- 
tures out  of  the  original  tongues  was  emphatically  the  work  demanded 


74  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

by  the  wants  of  the  age.     He  thus  explains  the  motives  which  moved 
him  to  put  his  hand  to  the  task  : 

"  A  thousand  books  had  they  lever  to  be  put  forth  against  their 
abominable  doings  and  doctrines,  than  that  the  Scripture  should 
come  to  light.  For  as  long  as  they  may  keep  that  down,  they  will  so 
darken  the  right  way  with  their  mist  of  sophistry,  and  so  tangle  them 
that  either  rebuke  or  despise  their  abominations,  with  arguments  of 
philosophy,  and  with  worldly  similitudes  and  apparent  reasons  of 
natural  wisdom  ;  and  with  wresting  the  Scriptures  unto  their  own 
purpose,  clean  contrary  unto  the  process,  order  and  meaning  of  the 
text  ;  and  so  delude  them,  expounding  it  in  many  senses  before  the 
unlearned  lay  people  (when  it  hath  but  one  plain,  literal  sense,  whose 
light  the  owls  cannot  abide),  that  though  thou  feel  in  thine  heart,  and 
art  sure,  how  that  all  is  false  that  they  say,  yet  couldst  thou  not  solve 
their  subtle  riddles. 

"  Which  thing  only  moved  me  to  translate  the  New  Testament. 
Because  I  perceived  by  experience,  how  that  it  was  impossible  to 
establish  the  lay  people  in  any  truth,  except  the  Scriptures  were  plainly 
laid  before  their  eyes  in  their  mother  tongue. 

Convinced  that  the  prosecution  of  his  design  was  impracticable 
where  he  then  was,  and  fearing,  moreover,  to  jeopardize  the  family  of 
his  kind  patrons  by  remaining  under  their  roof,  Tyndale  now 
resolved  to  seek  another  home.  The  plan  he  formed  in  this  exigency 
strikingly  illustrates  his  simplicity  of  character,  and  his  ignorance  of 
the  state  of  things  in  "  high  places."  The  opposition  from  which  he 
had  suffered  he  ascribed  to  the  peculiar  ignorance  and  stupidity  of 
the  Gloucestershire  clergy. 

"  When,"  says  he,  "  I  was  so  turmoiled  in  the  country  where  I  was, 

that   I   could   no   longer   dwell   there, I    thiswise 

thought  in  myself  :  this  I  suffer,  because  the  priests  of  the  country  be 
unlearned,  as  God  knoweth  they  are  a  full  ignorant  sort,  which  have 
seen  no  more  Latin  than  they  read  in  their  Portesses,  and  Missals, 
which  yet  many  of  them  can  scarcely  read.  And  therefore,  because 
they  are  thus  unlearned,  thought  1,  when  they  come  together  to  the 
ale-house,  which  is  their  preaching  place,  they  affirm  that  my  sayings 
are  heresy. 

From  the  enlightened  clergy  of  the  metropolis  he  expected  very 
different  treatment.  He  fixed  his  eyes  on  Tunstal,  Bishop  of  Lon- 
don, whom  Erasmus,  in  his  Annotations  on  the  New  Testament,  had 
proclaimed  a  paragon  of  learning  and  liberality,  as  the  man  under 
whose  countenance  he  was  to  execute,  in  safety  and  quiet,  and  with 
all   such   aids  as  he  might  need,   the  beneficent   task  of  giving  the 


tyndale's  new  testament.  75 

Bible  to  England.  "I  thought,"  says  he,  "  if  I  might  come  into 
this  man's  service,  I  were  happy.  For  even  in  the  Bishop  of  Lon- 
don's house,  I  intended  to  have  done  it." 

Bidding  farewell  to  his  pleasant  home  in  Little  Sodbury  Manor, 
Tyndale  now  turned  his  steps  toward  London,  provided  with  a  letter 
from  his  patron  to  Sir  Harry  Guildford,  the  King's  Comptroller. 
The  story  of  his  disappointment  must  be  given  in  his  own  words  : 

"And  so,"  he  says,  "I  gat  me  to  London,  and  through  the 
acquaintance  of  my  master,  came  to  Sir  Harry  Guildford,  the  King's 
Grace's  Comptroller,  and  brought  him  an  oration  of  Isocrates,  which 
I  had  translated  out  of  Greek  into  English,  to  speak  unto  my  Lord  of 
London  for  me.  This  he  also  did,  as  he  showed  me,  and  willed  me 
to  write  an  epistle  to  my  lord,  and  to  go  to  him  myself,  which  I  also 
did,  and  delivered  my  epistle  to  a  servant  of  his  own,  one  William 
Hebilthwayte,  a  man  of  mine  old  acquaintance.  But  God,  which 
knoweth  that  which  is  within  hypocrites,  saw  that  I  was  beguiled,  and 
that  that  counsel  was  not  the  next  way  to  my  purpose.  And  there- 
fore he  gat  me  no  favor  in  my  lord's  sight.  Whereupon  my  lord 
answered  me — '  his  house  was  full,  he  had  more  than  he  could  well 
find,  and  advised  me  to  seek  in  London,  where,'  he  said,  '  I  could 
not  lack  a  service.'  " 

The  historical  novelist  might  go  far,  without  finding  richer  mate- 
rials for  character-painting  than  are  furnished  by  this  little  narrative. 
The  guileless  country  scholar,  his  head  teeming  with  classical  and 
sacred  lore,  and  his  heart  burning  with  a  great  thought  of  beneficence 
to  his  country — with  his  letter  from  the  country  baronet,  and  his  ora- 
tion of  Isocrates  for  credentials — and  the  proud,  worldly  church  digni- 
tary, whose  friendship  and  protection  he  came  to  solicit,  would  make 
an  exquisite  contrast.  To  the  Bishop  of  London  the  poor,  unknown 
clerk  is  a  very  different  personage  from  the  celebrated  Erasmus,  the 
protege  of  popes  and  princes  ;  and  Tyndale  is  shown  out  of  the 
stately  episcopal  palace,  with  the  kind  advice  to  seek  his  fortune  else- 
where. "  Truly,"  thus  muses  the  disappointed  scholar,  "  it  was  all 
in  the  tongue  of  Erasmus,  which  maketh  of  little  gnats  great  ele- 
phants, and  lifteth  up  above  the  stars  whoever  giveth  him  a  little 
exhibition  !" — There  came  a  time,  and  not  long  after,  when  Bishop 
Tunstal  found  this  same  William  Tyndale  a  man  of  far  more  account, 
so  far  as  the  interests  of  the  Romish  hierarchy  were  concerned,  than 
the  great  Erasmus. 

Nearly  a  year  was  consumed  in  vain  efforts  to  secure  a  situation 
favorable  to  the  accomplishment  of  his  design.  Evidently  there  was 
something  in  his  deportment  and  conversation   which  did  not  com- 


j6  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

mend  him  to  the  church  dignitaries  of  the  capital.  The  last  six 
months,  he  found  a  home  in  the  hospitable  abode  of  Humphrey  Mon- 
mouth, a  wealthy  citizen,  afterward  an  Alderman  of  London.  It  was, 
however,  far  from  being  an  idle  or  unprofitable  year.  He  preached, 
it  would  seem,  regularly  at  St.  Dunstan's  church,  Fleet  Street,  on  the 
Sabbath,  and  was  as  indefatigable  a  student  as  ever.  But  the  most 
valuable  lessons  of  the  year  were  obtained  from  the  study,  for  which 
the  metropolis  furnished  such  rich  advantages,  of  the  working  of  the 
existing  Church  system,  its  influence  on  the  character  of  the  clergy, 
and  through  them,  upon  the  moral  condition  of  the  kingdom,  and  the 
general  interests  of  Christendom.  He  now  saw  that"  a  plan  for 
enlightening  the  people,  like  that  which  he  had  formed,  was  in  contra- 
vention of  the  first  principle  of  their  policy,  that  the  power  of  the 
clergy  rests  on  the  ignorance  of  the  masses.  Before  the  close  of  the 
year  he  had  relinquished  all  idea  of  attempting  its  execution  in  Eng- 
land. 

"  And  so,"  he  says,  "  I  abode  in  London  almost  a  year,  and 
marked  the  course  of  the  world,  and  heard  our  preachers,  how  they 
boasted  themselves  and  their  high  authority  ;  and  beheld  the  pomp  of 
our  prelates,  and  how  busy  they  were,  as  they  yet  use,  to  set  peace 
and  unity  in  the  world  ;  though  it  be  not  possible  for  them  that  walk 
in  darkness  to  continue  long  in  peace  (for  they  cannot  but  either 
stumble,  or  dash  themselves  at  one  thing  or  another,  that  shall  clean 
disquiet  them  altogether),  and  saw  things  of  which  I  defer  to  speak  at 
this  time  ;  and  understood  at  the  last,  not  only  that,  there  was  no 
room  in  my  Lord  of  London's  palace  to  translate  the  New  Testament, 
but  also  that  there  was  no  place  to  do  it  in  all  England,  as  experience 
doth  now  openly  declare." 

Accordingly,  late  in  the  year  1523,*  being  furnished  by  his  noble 
friend,  Monmouth,  with  the  sum  of  ten  pounds  (equal  to  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  of  the  present  time,  or  nearly  seven  hundred  dollars), 
Tyndale  bade  a  final  adieu  to  his  native  land,  and  embarked  for  Ham- 
burgh. In  this  city  he  remained  between  one  and  two  years,  dili- 
gently improving  the  quiet  and  security  here  afforded  for  the  prosecu- 
tion of  his  translation. 

Having  nearly  or  quite  completed  it,  he  drew  on  Monmouth  for  an 
additional  ten  pounds,  contributed  by  other  English  friends,  which  he 
had  left  with  him  for  safe-keeping,  and  repaired  to  Cologne  for  the 

*  In  the  statement  of  dates  and  places,  the  authority  of  Anderson  (Annals  of 
the  English  Bible,  London,  1S45)  is,  for  the  most  part,  followed  in  this  division 
of  the  work. 


tyndale's  new  testament.  77 

purpose  of  printing  his  manuscript  at  one  of  its  celebrated  presses. 
His  arrangements  were  made  with  the  greatest  secrecy,  for  Cologne 
was  far  from  being  favorable  to  the  sentiments  of  the  Reformation. 

One  interesting  fact  should  not  be  omitted  in  this  connection.  The 
English  merchants,  residing  for  purposes  of  trade  in  the  commercial 
cities  of  Germany,  seem,  as  a  general  thing,  to  have  been  deeply  im- 
bued with  Protestant  principles.  Many  of  them  became  the  steady 
friends  and  protectors  of  Tyndale,  and  entered  with  warm  zeal  into 
his  design  of  giving  the  Bible  to  their  common  country.  They  aided 
him  with  money  ;  their  ships  were  at  his  service  for  the  conveyance  of 
his  precious  offering  into  England,  concealed  in  boxes  and  bales  of 
merchandise.  Of  like  spirit  must  have  been  their  partners  in  the 
English  ports,  to  whom  it  was  consigned.  Thus  we  have  a  glimpse 
into  a  state  of  opinion  and  feeling,  in  a  most  influential  class  of  Eng- 
lish society,  which  might  well  excite  the  utmost  jealousy  and  vigilance 
on  the  part  of  the  churchmen.  Such  friends  Tyndale  found  at  Co- 
logne ;  and  his  work  was  passing  through  the  press  under  happy  aus- 
pices, when  an  exigency  arose,  beyond  their  power  to  meet,  which 
drove  Tyndale  hastily  from  the  city. 

THE     BIBLE-HATER 

Just  at  this  critical  moment,  when  the  salvation  of  England  seemed 
to  hang  on  the  successful  completion  of  the  undertaking,  there  arrived 
in  Cologne  one  of  the  most  busy  and  malignant  enemies  of  the  truth 
that  the  world  has  seen.  The  especial  distinction  of  John  Cochlseus 
was  his  intense  hatred  to  vernacular  translations  of  the  Bible,  in 
which  he  is  said  to  have  surpassed  all  his  contemporaries.  The  rancor 
which  characterized  his  numerous  writings  against  German  reformers 
and  his  unceasing  efforts,  by  word  and  deed,  to  counteract  their  influ- 
ence, had  so  offended  the  Protestant  feeling  of  Frankfort,  where  he 
formerly  resided,  that  he  was  obliged  to  flee  from  that  city.  The 
same  thing  having  been  repeated  at  Mentz,  he  took  refuge  at  Cologne 
at  the  very  time  when  his  presence  was,  seemingly,  most  disastrous  to 
the  cause  of  truth.  Just  then  he  was  exceedingly  anxious  to  bring  out 
the  works  of  Rupert,  an  ancient  abbot  of  Deutz,  who  was  claimed  by 
both  parties  in  the  great  controversy  ;  but  he  found  it  difficult  to  con- 
vince any  of  the  Cologne  printers  that  the  enterprise  would  pay. 
After  many  unsuccessful  attempts,  Peter  Quintel,  the  very  printer 
employed  by  Tyndale,  was  persuaded  to  make  the  trial  ;  and  thus  the 
best  of  opportunities  for  ferreting  out  the  important  secret  was  fur- 
nished to  the  man  who,  of  all  others,  would  be  likely  to  make  the 
worst  use  of  it. 


78  ENGLISH   BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

For  a  person  of  his  rank,  and  an  ecclesiastic,  Cochloeus  seems  to 
have  been  on  terms  of  very  jovial  fellowship  with  the  printers.  The 
manner  in  which  he  improved  the  intimacy  is  most  fitly  related  in  his 
own  words. 

"  Having  thus  become  more  intimate  and  familiar  with  the  Cologne 
printers,  he  sometimes  heard  them  boast,  confidently,  when  in  their 
cups,  that,  whether  the  King  and  Cardinal  of  England  would  or 
would  not,  all  England  would,  in  a  short  time,  be  Lutheran.  He 
heard,  also,  that  there  were  two  Englishmen  lurking  there,  learned, 
skillful  in  languages,  and  fluent,  whom,  however,  he  could  never  see 
or  converse  with.  Calling,  therefore,  certain  printers  into  his  lodg- 
ing, after  they  were  heated  with  wine,  one  of  them  in  more  private  dis- 
course, discovered  to  him  the  secret  by  which  England  was  to  be 
drawn  over  to  the  side  of  Luther,  namely,  '  That  three  thousand 
copies  of  the  Lutheran  New  Testament,  translated  into  the  English 
language,  were  in  press,  and  already  were  advanced  as  far  as  the  let- 
ter K,  in  ordine  quaternionum.  That  the  expenses  were  fully  supplied 
by  English  merchants,  who  were  secretly  to  convey  the  work  when 
printed,  and  disperse  it  widely  through  all  England,  before  the  King 
or  the  Cardinal  would  discover  or  prevent  it.'  " 

Having  considered  with  himself  "  the  magnitude  of  the  grievous 
danger,"  Cochlaeus  repaired,  next  day,  to  the  house  of  Hermann 
Rincke,  a  distinguished  patrician  of  Cologne,  who  had  held  many 
high  offices  at  court,  was  familiar  both  with  the  Emperor  and  with 
the  King  of  England,  and  had  great  influence  in  the  city  government, 
and  to  him  disclosed  the  whole  affair.  Herr  Rincke  was  not  the  man 
to  let  slip  an  opportunity  for  laying  a  king  under  obligation.  Accord- 
ingly, after  satisfying  himself  by  personal  investigation  at  the  printing 
house  that  Cochlseus  was  not  mistaken,  he  laid  the  matter  before  the 
city  Senate,  and  made  such  a  representation  of  the  case,  that  they 
issued  an  order  interdicting  the  printer  from  proceeding  farther  in 
that  work.  Tyndale  did  not  wait  for  the  second  blow.  Hastily 
gathering  up  his  manuscripts,  and  the  sheets  as  far  as  printed,  he  fled 
with  his  assistant,  George  Roye,  up  the  Rhine  to  Worms.  This 
place,  being  fully  pervaded  by  the  doctrines  of  Luther,  offered  a  far 
more  secure  retreat  than  Cologne,  and  here,  accordingly,  he  remained 
till  the  year  1527. 

Arrived  at  Worms,  he  was  personally  safe,  and  might  hope  to  com- 
plete his  work  without  interruption.  But  a  new  difficulty  lay  in  his 
way.  The  New  Testament  which  he  had  commenced  printing  was  in 
quarto  form,  with  explanatory  notes  and  glosses,  and  a  long  Prologue 
at  the  beginning.     All  this  had  become  known  to  his  enemies,  who 


tyndale's  new  testament.  79 

would,  of  course,  furnish  such  a  description  of  the  volume  to  the 
authorities  in  England  as  would  enable  them  to  seize  all  copies  the 
instant  they  arrived.  Tyndale  decided  at  once  upon  his  course. 
Laying  aside  his  quarto  for  the  present,  he  had  an  edition  of  the  text 
merely  struck  off  in  octavo  form,  in  which,  for  the  Prologue,  he  sub- 
stituted an  Epistle  to  the  Reader,  at  the  end,  thus  effacing,  so  far  as 
possible,  every  feature  by  which  the  book  might  be  identified.  This 
he  probably  intended  should  precede  the  quarto,  by  an  interval  suffi- 
ciently long  to  allow  the  alarm  excited  by  Cochlaeus  to  die  away. 
But,  through  some  circumstances,  now  unknown,  its  transmission  to 
England  was  delayed  till  the  quarto  also  had  been  completed,  and 
both  editions  arrived  very  nearly  at  the  same  time,  toward  the  close  of 
December,  1525.  The  labor  was  not,  indeed,  fruitless  ;  for  the  little 
octavo  had  been  quietly  making  its  way  through  the  country,  nearly 
three  quarters  of  a  year  before  its  existence  was  suspected.  The 
quarto,  on  the  contrary,  was  discovered  scarcely  a  month  after  its 
arrival.  The  circumstances  of  its  detection  furnish  a  lively  picture  of 
the  state  of  the  times. 

THE     SECRET     SEARCH. 

In  the  year  1523,  Symon  Fyshe,  a  lawyer  of  Gray's  Inn,  London, 
having  taken  part  in  a  privately  acted  play  which  reflected  severely  on 
Cardinal  Wolsey,  was  that  same  night  betrayed,  and  obliged  to  flee 
from  his  own  house,  and  at  length  from  England.  While  still  in  exile, 
probably  in  the  year  1524,  he  composed  a  tract  addressed  '  to  the 
King  our  Sovereign  Lord,'  entitled  '  The  Supplication  of  Beggars,' 
which  set  forth,  in  a  bold  and  spirited  manner,  the  danger  to  the 
nation  and  the  throne  from  the  grasping  avarice  of  the  clergy.  In 
this,  he  averred,  was  the  true  ground  of  their  opposition  to  the  Bible 
for  the  people.  "  This  is  the  great  scab  why  they  will  not  let  the  New 
Testament  go  abroad  in  your-  mother-tongue,  lest  men  should  espy  that 
they,  by  their  cloaked  hypocrisy,  do  translate,  thus  fast,  your  kingdom 
into  their  hands." — Copies  of  this  stirring  appeal  were  soon  secretly 
circulating  in  England,  and  produced  wherever  read  a  deep  impres- 
sion. On  Candlemas  day,  February  2,  1526,  advantage  was  taken  of 
a  royal  procession  to  Westminster,  to  scatter  large  numbers  in  the 
streets,  thus  distributing  it  far  and  wide,  among  all  classes  of  people. 

How  slight  a  cause  will  alarm  the  abettor  of  error  !  The  great 
Cardinal,  clothed  with  almost  regal  and  pontifical  power,  the  man 
who  had  been  truly  called  the  '  king  of  his  king,'  trembled  at  these  few 
pages  of  a  friendless,  banished  man.  It  was  not  without  reason  ;  for 
they  had  in  them  the  omnipotence  of  truth  !     So  imminent  seemed  to 


80  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

him  the  danger,  that  on  the  very  next  day,  orders  were  issued  by  his 
authority  for  a  "  secret  search"'  after  Lutheran  books,*  to  be  made 
simultaneously  in  London,  and  both  the  Universities.  Three  years 
before,  a  similar  measure  had  been  resolved  on,  as  a  check  to  the 
progress  of  reform,  and  had  then  obtained  the  king's  full  concur- 
rence. Without  waiting  for  any  further  expression  of  the  royal  will, 
Wolsey  now  proceeded  to  carry  out  this  act  into  instant  execution. 
Such  were  the  circumstances  which  led  to  the  discovery,  thus  early, 
of  the  English  New  Testament. 

Suspicion  having  fastened  particularly  on  one  Thomas  Garrett, 
curate  of  All  Hallows  Church,  as  a  receiver  and  distributor  of  prohib- 
ited books,  he  was  searched  for  through  all  London.  It  was  found, 
however,  that  he  had  gone  to  Oxford,  with  a  quantity  of  such  books, 
for  the  purpose  of  there  making  sale  of  them  "  to  such  as  he  knew  to 
be  lovers  of  the  Gospel."  Thither  he  was  pursued,  in  the  determina- 
tion, says  Foxe,  "  to  apprehend  and  imprison  him,  and  to  burn  all 
and  every  his  foresaid  books,  and  himself  too,  if  they  could,  so  burn- 
ing hot  was  their  zeal."  But  having  received  a  friendly  warning  of 
his  danger,  he  fled  on  the  morning  of  the  7th,  and  concealed  himself. 
The  impression  of  that  day  of  terror  is  affectingly  given  in  the  words 
of  Anthony  Dalaber,  one  of  the  pious  Oxford  students,  who  was  a 
devoted  friend,  and,  soon  after,  a  fellow-sufferer,  of  Garrett. 

"  When  he  was  gone  down  from  my  chamber,  I  straightway  did  shut 
my  chamber  door,  and  went  into  my  study,  and  took  the  New  Testa- 
ment in  my  hands,  kneeled  down  on  my  knees,  and  with  many  a  deep 
sigh  and  salt  tear,  I  did  with  much  deliberation  read  over  the  tenth 
chapter  of  Matthew's  Gospel  ;  and  when  I  had  so  done,  with  fervent 
prayers  I  did  commit  unto  God  our  dearly  beloved  brother  Garrett, 
earnestly  beseeching  him  in  and  for  Jesus  Christ's  sake,  his  only  be- 
gotten Son,  our  Lord,  that  he  would  vouchsafe  not  only  safely  to  con- 
duct and  keep  our  said  dear  brother  from  the  hands  of  all  his  ene- 
mies, but  also  that  he  would  endue  his  tender  and  lately  born  little 
flock  in  Oxford  with  heavenly  strength  by  his  Holy  Spirit,  that  they 
might  be  able  thereby  valiantly  to  withstand,  to  his  glory,  all  their 
fierce  enemies,  and  might  also  quietly*  to  their  own  salvation,  with  all 
godly  patience,  bear  Christ's  heavy  cross  ;  which  I  now  saw  was  pres- 
ently to  be  laid  on  their  young  and  tender  backs,  unable  to  bear  so 

*  Lutheran  was  now  the  term  of  reproach,  as  Lollard  had  been  during  the  pre- 
ceding century.  Under  this  name  were  included  not  only  the  translated  works 
of  the  German  reformers,  but  all  English  books,  both  old  and  recent,  which  con- 
tained sentiments  similar  to  theirs,  Tyndale's  original  writings  and  his  New 
Testament  among  the  number. 


tyndale's  new  TESTAMENT.  8 1 

great  a  burden  without  the  great  help  of  his  Holy  Spirit.     This  done 
I  laid  aside  my  book  safe." 

Many  such  scenes,  no  doubt,  passed  that  night  in  solitary  rooms  at 
Oxford,  when  the  English  New  Testament  of  Tyndale  was  consecrated 
to  its  holy  work  by  the  tears  and  prayers  of  humble  and  trembling 
hearts.  On  the  following  Friday,  poor.  Garrett  fell  into  the  hands  of 
his  enemies.  After  being  compelled,  in  company  with  Dalaber  and 
several  other  convicted  students,  to  march  in  procession  from  St. 
Mary's  to  Cardinal  College,  where  each  of  them  cast  one  of  the  con- 
demned books  into  a  large  bonfire  kindled  for  the  purpose,  the  two 
friends  were  imprisoned  at  Osney  Isle  till  near  the  close  of  the  year, 
when  Garrett  was  brought  before  Tunstal  for  the  trial  which  resulted 
in  his  martyrdom. 

But  these  were  not  the  only  victims  at  Oxford.  Cardinal  College, 
that  darling  of  Wolsey's  heart,  was  found  to  be  deeply  infected  with 
the  dreaded  poison.  The  books  detected  under  the  flooring  of  its 
rooms  and  in  other  secret  places,  too  plainly  betrayed  the  humiliating 
fact.  The  Cardinal's  anger  was  in  proportion  to  his  disappointment. 
Of  the  suspected,  some  escaped  to  their  friends  ;  but  ten  or  more 
members  of  this  model  college,  with  about  an  equal  number  from  the 
others,  were  apprehended,  and  immured  in  a  deep  cellar  under  Car- 
dinal College,  used  as  a  repository  of  salt  fish.  Three  of  them  sunk 
within  a  week  under  the  effects  of  a  putrid  atmosphere  and  unwhole- 
some food,  and  a  fourth  soon  followed.  The  rest,  after  lying  from 
March  to  August  in  this  loathsome  dungeon,  with  nothing  to  subsist 
on  but  the  fish  with  which  it  was  stored,  were  made  prisoners  at  large 
by  Wolsey.  He  probably  thought  that  by  this  time  the  lads  were  well 
cured  of  heresy. 

Among  the  number  thus  released  was  John  Frith,  then  about 
twenty-two  years  of  age,  a  young  man  of  rare  genius  and  acquirements, 
and  of  fervent  piety.  He  soon  escaped  to  the  continent  ;  and  having 
joined  his  spiritual  father  and  best  beloved  friend,  Tyndale,  became 
his  assistant  in  translating  the  Bible. 

We  must  now  turn  to  the  sister  university.  Cambridge  lay  under 
still  stronger  suspicion  of  heresy  than  Oxford,  and  with  good  reason. 
Here,  several  years  before,  Thomas  Bilney  had  been  converted  by  the 
study  of  Erasmus'  Greek  Testament  ;  and,  through  his  labors,  Hugh 
Latimer,  and  Robert  Barnes,  Prior  of  the  Monastery  of  Augustin 
Friars  at  Cambridge,  had  also  learned  the  way  of  life.  From  them  a 
powerful  evangelical  influence  had  spread  into  the  various  colleges  of 
the  university,  so  that  even  as  early  as  1523  certain  bishops  had  urged 
the  importance  of  a  visitation,  for   the  purpose  of  trying  those  who 


82  ENGLISH   BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

were  infected  with  heresy.  Wolsey,  who  always  resented  the  interfer- 
ence of  inferior  prelates  in  matters  which  he  had  taken  under  his  spe- 
cial supervision,  and  who  probably  thought  he  could  arrest  the  epi- 
demic whenever  he  might  please  to  speak  the  word,  silenced  the 
movement.  Perhaps,  moreover,  he  could  not  prevail  on  himself  to 
extinguish,  at  once,  the  only  light  amid  the  stupid  conservatism  of 
Cambridge  ;  for  the  suspected  parties  were  the  sole  promoters  and  ex- 
amples of  liberal  learning  in  the  university.  Whatever  were  the  cause, 
the  truth  was  permitted  to  spread  three  years  longer,  unobstructed  by 
any  authoritative  interference. 

But  a  crisis  gradually  approached.  Growing  bolder  and  more 
earnest  in  the  truth,  Latimer  openly  inveighed  against  the  crime  of 
locking  up  the  Scriptures  from  the  people  in  an  unknown  tongue.  Upon 
this  he  was  cited  for  heresy  before  West,  Bishop  of  Ely,  and  forbidden 
to  preach  either  in  the  churches  of  the  university,  or  anywhere  within 
his  diocese.  But  the  monasteries  were  exempt  from  episcopal  juris- 
diction, and  Barnes  opened  his  chapel  to  the  silenced  preacher.  Such 
were  the  crowds  who  rushed  to  hear  him  that  the  place  could  not  con- 
tain them.  Barnes  himself  was  now  invited  by  the  parish  of  St.  Ed- 
wards to  preach  in  their  church  ;  and,  though  constitutionally  timid, 
and  hitherto,  it  would  seem,  cautious  in  his  policy,  he  now  resolved  to 
give  free  and  full  utterance  to  his  convictions.  The  rising  tide  of 
popular  favor,  an  influence  to  which  he  was  very  susceptible,  may 
have  caused  something  of  human  vanity  and  presumption  to  mingle 
with  his  better  feelings  ;  for,  not  contenting  himself  with  a  clear  exhi- 
bition of  Christian  truth,  he  launched  into  a  bold  tirade,  full  of  wit 
and  sarcasm,  against  the  worldly  pomp  and  magnificence  of  the  Lord 
Cardinal  himself,  then  in  the  height  and  plenitude  of  power.  A  re- 
buke well  merited,  indeed,  but  which  could  hardly  fail  to  lead  to  con- 
sequences for  which,  alas  !  poor  Barnes  was  but  ill-prepared.  This 
was  on  the  24th  of  December,  1525.  A  storm  immediately  arose  in 
the  university,  one  party  siding  most  zealously  with  the  preacher,  as  a 
champion  of  the  faith,  the  other  firmly  resolved  on  his  humiliation  or 
his  ruin.  Public  disputations  on  the  contested  points  were  kept  up 
through  the  whole  of  January,  and  the  first  week  of  February,  in 
which  learned  men  from  at  least  seven  different  colleges  took  part. 
Meanwhile  a  full  account  of  the  transaction  had  been  sent  to  the  Car- 
dinal. 

Things  were  thus  progressing  at  Cambridge,  and  Wolsey's  proud 
spirit  had  been  stung  to  madness,  by  the  report  of  Barnes's  attack  upon 
those  peculiarly  tender  points  in  his  character,  when  the  distribution 
of  Fyshe's  tract,  on  the  second  of  February,  completed  his  chagrin  and 


tyndale's  new  testament.  83 

irritation.  The  emissaries  of  the  "  secret  search"  at  Cambridge,  had 
a  double  commission  ;  first,  the  apprehension  of  Dr.  Barnes,  and  sec- 
ondly, the  seizure  of  heretical  books,  and  of  those  in  whose  possession 
they  were  found.  Of  these,  not  fewer  than  thirty  names  were  on  their 
list,  and  the  rooms  of  each  had  been  exactly  designated  and  described. 
But  at  the  first  instant  of  the  officers'  arrival,  Dr.  Forman,  of  Queen's 
College,  himself  an  adherent  of  "  the  new  learning,"  had  given  the 
warning  word  ;  and  by  the  time  the  sergeant-at-arms,  attended  by  the 
Vice-Chancellor  and  the  Proctors,  was  ready  to  go  the  rounds,  Cam- 
bridge was,  to  all  appearance,  purified  of  heresy.  Not  a  "  seditious" 
book  was  to  be  found  ;  and  the  officer,  with  only  Dr.  Barnes  in 
charge,  returned  to  London,  no  wiser  than  he  came. 

The  next  day  after  his  apprehension,  Barnes  stood  before  Wolsey, 
whose  bitter  taunts  and  hard  demeanor  betrayed  how  deeply  his  pride 
had  been  wounded.  "  What  !  Master  Doctor,"  he  asked,  "  had  you 
not  scope  enough  in  the  Scriptures  to  teach  the  people,  that  my  golden 
shoes,  my  pole-axes,  my  pillars,  my  golden  cushions,  my  crosses  did 
so  offend  you,  that  you  must  make  me  ridiculum  caput  before  the  peo- 
ple ?  We  were  jollily  that  day  laughed  to  scorn.  Verily,  it  was  a 
sermon  fitter  to  be  preached  on  a  stage  than  in  a  pulpit."  Poor 
Barnes  for  a  time  held  out  bravely,  alike  against  threats  and  persua- 
sions. But  when  the  final  alternative  was  put  to  him — "  Abjure  or 
bum" — his  faith  proved  insufficient  for  the  trial.  Having,  in  great 
agony  of  mind,  at  length  yielded  to  the  demands  of  his  judges,  the  next 
Sunday  was  appointed  for  the  public  expiation  of  his  offence,  at  St. 
Paul's.  On  that  day,  the  triumphant  cardinal,  attired  in  purple,  sur- 
rounded by  six  and  thiirty  abbots,  mitred  priors  and  bishops,  in  dam- 
ask and  satin,  sat  enthroned  in  all  his  pomp — the  highest  representa- 
tive of  the  Church  of  Rome  in  England— and  beheld  at  his  feet  the 
leading  champion  of  evangelical  truth — an  abjuring  heretic  !  Beside 
him  stood — each  like  him  with  a  faggot,  the  mark  of  shame,  on  his 
shoulder — live  honorable  merchants,  convicted  of  the  crime  of  aiding 
to  bring  the  Bible  into  England.  Within  the  rails  were  displayed  the 
evidences  of  their  guilt— "  great  baskets  full  of  books"  in  part  the  New 
Testaments  of  Tyndale — the  precious  booty  gathered  by  the  previous 
week's  "  search"  in  Oxford  and  London.  After  a  sermon  against 
Luther  and  Barnes,  by  Fisher,  Bishop  of  Rochester,  these  baskets  were 
emptied  into  a  large  bonfire,  kindled  before  the  great  crucifix  at  the 
north  gate  of  St.  Paul's,  wherein  also  the  heretics,  after  making 
three  times  the  circuit  of  the  fire,  cast  their  faggots.  Wolsey  then 
retired  under  a  canopy,  in  great  pomp,  and  Fisher  proclaimed  to  the 
assembly  certain  days  of  pardon  and  indulgence,  for  being  present  on 


84  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

this  occasion  ;  though  by  his  own  statement,  when  he  afterward  pub- 
lished his  sermon,  they  had  made  such  a  tumult  as  to  drown  his  voice 
during  its  delivery.  At  the  close  of  the  ceremony  the  unhappy 
Barnes,  in  accordance  with  the  good  faith  and  tenderness  usually 
shown  by  the  Romish  Mother  to  those  who  have  returned  to  her 
bosom,  was  sent  back  to  prison. 

Such  was  the  greeting  which  the  New  Testament  received  at  the 
hands  of  the  priesthood,  on  its  first  arrival  in  England,  in  the  six- 
teenth century.  It  was  just  as  they  had  treated  Wickliffe's  Bible  a 
hundred  and  forty  years  before.  The  spirit  of  the  Romish  Church 
had  remained  unchanged. 

THE     KING     ENLISTED. 

Thus  far,  however,  these  measures  had  received  no  direct  counte- 
nance from  the  King.  In  the  "  secret  search"  just  described,  the 
cardinal  had  acted  simply  on  his  own  ecclesiastical  authority.  But  a 
few  weeks  only  had  elapsed,  when  Luther's  imprudence,  and  Henry's 
vanity,  furnished  the  means  of  enlisting  him  as  a  persecutor,  with  a 
zeal  no  less  violent  than  theirs. 

Henry  VIII. 's  book  against  Luther,  by  which  he  gained  from  the 
Pope  the  title  in  which  he  so  much  gloried — "  Defender  of  the  Faith" 
— and  Luther's  uncourteous,  not  to  say  virulent  reply,  are  matters 
familiar  to  my  readers.  In  1525,  Luther— urged,  as  he  afterward  pro- 
fessed, by  Christian,  King  of  Denmark — made  a  most  blundering 
attempt  at  reconciliation  with  Henry,  by  a  letter,  in  which  he  begged 
pardon  for  his  former  one,  as  foolish,  precipitate,  and  offensive  ;  but, 
at  the  same  time,  explaining  that  he  now  understood  the  real  author 
of  the  King's  book  to  have  been  Wolsey,  whom  he  denounced  as  "  a 
monster,  the  abhorrence  of  God  and  man,  and  the  plague  of  the  realm 
of  England."  It  so  happened,  moreover,  that  the  original  letter 
never  reached  Henry,  but  only  a  printed  copy,  and  that  not  till  six 
months  after  its  date,  or  about  one  month  after  the  degradation  of 
Barnes,  and  the  burning  of  the  New  Testaments  at  St.  Paul's. 

The  wily  cardinal  well  knew  how  to  turn  Luther's  faux  pas  to  his 
own  ends.  Incensed  beyond  measure  at  the  Reformer's  depreciation 
of  his  precious  book,  and  of  his  own  claim  to  be  its  author,  and  justly 
angry  that  the  letter  should  have  been  given  to  the  public  months  be- 
fore he  saw  it,  Henry  was  easily  persuaded  that  the  New  Testaments 
secretly  conveyed  in  such  numbers  into  the  country,  were  from  the 
same  source,  being  part  and  parcel  of  Luther's  plot  to  turn  all  Eng- 
land to  his  heresy.  The  fact  that  the  translator's  name  was  withheld, 
gave  color  to  the  assertion.     The  King  was  now  quite  willing  to  aid  in 


tyndale's  new  testament.  85 

their  suppression  ;  and,  accordingly,  the  first  royal  manifesto  in  de- 
fence of  the  burning  the  English  Bible,  and  the  severe  punishment  of 
those  who  should  read  it,  soon  appeared.  To  his  Latin  reply  to 
Luther,  was  prefixed  an  English  address  to  his  own  subjects,  in  which, 
after  an  account  of  Luther's  unfortunate  letter,  and  his  "  device"  of 
translating  the  New  Testament  into  English,  "  with  corruptions  in 
the  holy  text,  as  well  as  with  certain  prefaces  and  glosses,  for  the  ad- 
vancement and  setting  forth  of  his  abominable  heresies,"  he  proceeds 
in  the  following  paternal  style  :  "In  the  avoiding  whereof  We,  of 
our  special  tender  zeal  toward  you,  have,  with  the  deliberate  advice  of 
the  most  reverend  Father  in  God,  Thomas  Lord  Cardinal,  Legate  a 
latere  of  the  See  Apostolic,  Archbishop  of  York,  Chancellor  and  our 
Primate  of  this  realm,  and  other  reverend  fathers  of  the  spirituality, 
determined  the  said  and  untrue  translations  to  be  burned,  with  further 
sharp  correction  and  punishment  against  the  keepers  and  readers  of 
the  same,  reckoning  of  your  wisdom  very  sure,  that  ye  will  well  and 
thankfully  receive  our  tender  and  loving  mind  to  you  therein,  and  that 
ye  will  never  be  so  greedy  of  any  sweet  wine,  be  the  grape  never  so 
pleasant,  that  ye  will  desire  to  taste  it,  being  well  advertised  that 
your  enemy  before  hath  poisoned  it." 

The  King's  dutiful  subjects,  however,  were  neither  disposed  to  take 
his  word,  nor  submit  to  his  authority  in  this  matter.  The  idea,  so  long 
nourished  in  the  humble  congregations  of  the  Lollards,  that  no  power 
in  Church  or  State  can  lawfully  shut  up  the  word  of  God  from  the 
people,  had  now  spread  far  and  wide  in  England.  While,  therefore, 
unremitted  inquisition  was  made  for  the  sacred  book,  and  great  num- 
bers were  discovered  and  destroyed,  so  that,  we  are  informed,  "  dur- 
ing this  year  Bibles  were  burned  daily  ;"  yet,  so  far  did  the  demand 
and  supply  outstrip  the  activity  of  the  clergy,  that  the  country  was 
filled  with  copies.  Tunstal,  Bishop  of  London,  who  had  been  absent 
during  this  excitement,  as  Ambassador  to  jSpain,  returning  in  the 
autumn,  found  his  diocese  plentifully  sown  with  both  the  quarto  and 
the  octavo  editions.  On  the  24th  of  October  the  following  decree 
was  issued  under  his  episcopal  seal  : 

"  By  the  duty  of  our  pastoral  office  we  are  bound  diligently,  with  all  our 
power,  to  foresee,  provide  for,  root  out,  and  put  away,  all  those  things  which 
seem  to  tend  to  the  peril  and  danger  of  our  subjects,  and  specially  the  destruction 
of  their  souls  !  Wherefore,  we  having  understanding,  by  the  report  of  divers 
credible  persons,  and  also  by  the  evident  appearance  of  the  matter,  that  many 
children  of  iniquity,  maintainers  of  Luther's  sect,  blinded  through  extreme  wick- 
edness, wandering  from  the  way  of  truth  and  the  Catholic  faith,  craftily  have 
translated  the  New  Testament  into  our  English  tongue,  intermingling  therewith 
many  heretical  articles    and  erroneous  opinions,  pernicious  and  offensive,  seduc- 


86  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

ing  the  simple  people,  attempting,  by  their  wicked  and  perverse  interpretations, 
to  profanate  the  majesty  of  Scripture,  which  hitherto  hath  remained  undefiled, 
and  craftily  to  abuse  the  most  Holy  Word  of  God,  and  the  true  sense  of  the 
same  ;  of  the  which  translation  there  are  many  books  imprinted,  some  with 
glosses,  and  some  without  ;  containing,  in  the  English  tongue,  that  pestiferous 
And  most  pernicious  poison,  dispersed  throughout  all  our  diocese,  in  great  num- 
ber— which  truly,  without  it  be  speedily  foreseen,  without  doubt  will  contaminate 
and  infect  the  flock  committed  unto  us,  with  most  deadly  poison  and  heresy,  to 
die  grievous  peril  and  danger  of  the  souls  committed  to  our  charge,  and  the 
offence  of  God's  Divine  Majesty  :  Wherefore  we,  Cuthbert,  the  Bishop  aforesaid, 
grievously  sorrowing  for  the  premises,  willing  to  withstand  the  craft  and  subtlety 
of  the  ancient  enemy  and  his  ministers,  which  seek  the  destruction  of  my  flock, 
and  with  a  diligent  care  to  take  heed  unto  the  flock  committed  to  my  charge,  de- 
siring to  find  speedy  remedies  for  the  premises,  Do  charge  you,  jointly  and 
severally  (the  Archdeacons),  and  by  virtue  of  your  obedience,  straightly  enjoin 
and  command  you,  that,  by  our  authority,  you  warn,  or  cause  to  be  warned,  all 
and  singular,  as  well  exempt  as  not  exempt,  dwelling  within  your  archdeaconries, 
that  within  thirty  days'  space,  whereof  ten  days  shall  be  for  the  first,  ten  for  the 
second,  and  ten  for  the  third  peremptory  term,  under  pain  of  excommunication, 
and  incurring  the  suspicion  of  heresy,  they  do  bring  in,  and  really  deliver  unto 
our  Vicar-General,  (Geoffrey  Wharton),  all  and  singular  such  books  as  contain 
the  translation  of  the  New  Testament  in  the  English  Tongue  :  and  that  you  do 
certify  us,  or  our  said  Commissary,  within  two  months  after  the  day  of  the  date 
o(  these  presents,  duly,  personally,  or  by  your  letters,  together  with  these  pre- 
sents under  your  seals,  what  you  have  done  in  the  premises,  under  pain  of  con- 
tempt !  Given  under  our  seal,  the  four  and  twentieth  day  of  October,  a.d.  1526, 
in  the  fifth  year  of  our  consecration." 

The  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  had  already  called  an  assembly  of 
bishops,  to  consult  on  the  alarming  state  of  his  province  ;  and  a  few- 
days  after  the  publication  of  Tunstal's  decree,  an  archiepiscopal 
"  Mandate,"  couched  in  nearly  the  same  terms,  directed  a  search  of 
the  entire  province,  for  the  single  object  of  seizing  copies  of  the  Eng- 
lish New  Testament. 

.  Aware,  however,  that  all  this  would  avail  little,  so  long  as  the  offen- 
sive volume  continued  to  pour  in  from  abroad,  they  resolved  on  an 
energetic  effort  to  cut  off  the  source  of  supply.  Such  an  eager  crav- 
ing for  the  Scriptures  had  been  created  among  the  English  people,  that 
a  printer  of  Antwerp,  Christopher  Endhoven  by  name,  had  taken  it 
up  as  a  profitable  business  investment  ;  and,  without  consulting  Tyn- 
dale,  had  already  brought  out  a  third  edition  of  his  translation.  This, 
with  the  former  editions,  was  now  coming  into  England,  through 
members  of  the  English  House  of  Merchant  Adventurers  established 
in  that  great  commercial  emporium. 

The  office  of  confidential  agent  of  the  Crown  to  the  Imperial  City 
at  this  time  (the  King's   Merchant,  as  he  was  called)   was   Sir   John 


tyndale's  new  testament.  87 

Hackett,  who  held  also  the  high  office  of  Envoy  to  the  Court  of  Bra- 
bant, of  which  the  Princess  Margaret,  aunt  of  the  Emperor  Charles 
V.,  was  then  Regent.  Directly  after  the  issuing  of  Tunstal's  decree, 
Henry  addressed  a  letter  to  the  Princess,  and  another  to  the  Governor 
of  the  English  House,  both  of  which  had  for  their  object  the  seizure 
and  burning  of  English  New  Testaments  found  in  that  country,  and 
the  punishment,  by  banishment  and  confiscation,  of  all  engaged  in 
printing  and  circulating  it.  Chancellor  Wolsey  also  wrote  two  letters 
to  Hackett,  to  the  same  effect.  The  zeal  and  pertinacity  with  which 
the  Envoy  pushed  the  matter,  though,  as  appears  from  his  own  let- 
ters, highly  offensive  to  the  Lords  of  Antwerp,  and  not  over-welcome  to 
the  Princess  Margaret,  shows  the  urgency  of  his  directions  from  home. 
But  there  were  laws  in  Antwerp  ;  and  its  citizens  could  not  be 
touched,  "in  life  or  goods,"  for  offences  merely  charged,  and  not 
proved  against  them,  even  though  the  accuser  were  a  king.  Some 
three  or  four  hundred  volumes  were  seized  in  various  cities  and 
burned,  and  Endhoven  was  temporarily  imprisoned.  But  he  was 
neither  banished  nor  his  property  confiscated  ;  and  while  Hackett  was 
picking  up  a  few  hundred  stray  copies,  thousands,  as  they  all  knew  too 
well,  were  making  their  way  toward  England,  or  were  already  there. 

THE     BISHOPS     ON     THE     ALERT. 

Finding  it  out  of  the  question  to  put  a  forcible  stop  to  the  circula- 
tion of  the  terrible  book — to  them  the  book  of  doom — the  prelates 
now  fell  upon  a  new  expedient.  They  resolved  to  clear  the  market  by 
wholesale  purchase  from  the  printers  and  dealers  !  This  Warham, 
the  Primate  of  England,  effected  so  far  as  it  was  possible,  through 
Hackett  the  Envoy,  at  an  expense  to  his  archiepiscopal  province,  of 
about  five  thousand  dollars  of  our  money.     This  was  in  the  spring  of 

Tunstal,  meanwhile,  was  equally  busy  in  searching  for  copies  already 
in  the  country,  but  not  with  the  same  success'.  He  was  just  proceed- 
ing to  more  stringent  measures  in  his  diocese,  which  should  utterly 
root  out  the  obnoxious  influence,  when  his  appointment,  in  conjunction 
with  Wolsey  and  Sir  Thomas  More,  to  a  political  embassy  to  France, 
obliged  him  to  leave  the  matter  in  charge  with  his  Vicar.  He,  either 
through  disinclination  or  fear,  did  nothing  about  it,  and  the  persecu- 
tion was  stayed  till  his  superior's  return,  in  October. 

Wolsey  came  back  from  France  with  the  new  dignity  of  Vicar-gen- 
eral of  the  Pope  through  the  king's  dominions,  that  is,  with  authority 
to  exercise  all  the  functions  of  the  Pope  in  England.  Its  ecclesiastical 
affairs  were  placed  under  his  absolute  control  ;  its  clergy,  from  high- 


88  ENGLISH    BIBLE    TRANSLATION. 

est  to  lowest,  became  subject  to  him  as  their  supreme  Head.  His 
entrance  on  the  high  office  was  signalized  by  a  general  council  which 
met  in  obedience  to  his  summons,  at  Westminster,  in  November. 
Having  pompously  announced  that  "  now  all  the  abusions  of  the 
Church  should  be  amended,"  he  opened  the  court  by  an  examination 
of  two  distinguished  advocates  of  the  truth,  Arthur  and  Bilney,  on 
the  charge  of  heresy.  After  thus  giving  his  countenance  to  the  pro- 
ceeding, and  by  his  arrogant  and  contemptuous  bearing  toward  men 
infinitely  better  than  himself,  setting  a  worthy  example  to  his  bishops, 
he  left  the  trial  in  their  hands,  being  himself  occupied  with  "the 
affairs  of  the  realm." 

The  sad  result  of  the  trial  must  be  told.  On  the  2d  of  December 
Arthur  abjured,  nor  is  he  ever  again  heard  from  in  the  ranks  of  the 
faithful.  On  the  7th,  Bilney,  after  enduring  for  four  days  every 
species  of  mental  torture,  from  the  threats,  the  persecutions,  and 
sophistical  casuistry  of  Tunstal,  West,  and  Fisher,  followed  his  exam- 
ple. The  next  day,  his  head  bowed  with  shame,  and  his  heart  even 
then  racked  with  remorse,  he  bore  a  faggot  at  St.  Paul's,  and  was 
then  remanded  to  prison  during  the  Cardinal's  pleasure.  Being  at 
length  released,  he  returned  to  Cambridge  in  a  state  of  agony,  scarcely 
short  of  despair  ;  so  that  for  some  two  years  his  friends  dared  not 
leave  him  alone,  day  or  night.  "  They  comforted  him,"  says  Lati- 
mer, "  as  they  could,  but  no  comfort  would  serve.  And  as  for  the 
comfortable  places  of  Scripture,  to  bring  them  to  him  was  as  though 
a  man  should  run  him  through  the  heart  with  a  sword."  But  at 
length,  He  who  forgave  the  denial  of  Peter,  spoke  peace  to  the 
troubled  conscience  of  his  servant,  and  filled  his  soul  with  more  than 
its  early  joy  in  believing.  Saying  that  he  must  ' '  go  up  to  Jerusalem" 
he  now  took  leave  of  his  friends,  and  passing  through  the  shires  of 
Norfolk  and  Essex,  he  spent  many  weeks  preaching  the  gospel  from 
house  to  house,  and  distributing  copies  of  Tyndale's  New  Testament. 
Being  at  length  seized  near  London,  the  timid,  but  most  loving  and 
sincere  disciple,  received  strength  to  confess  his  Master  boldly  before 
men,  and  went  up  to  heaven  in  the  fiery  chariot  of  martyrdom. 

Thus  determined  and  thorough  were  the  measures  of  the  high 
powers  in  Church  and  State,  for  the  suppression  of  the  word  of  God. 
Royal  and  priestly  prohibitions,  decrees,  mandates,  secret  inquisition, 
foreign  diplomacy,  and  persecution,  had  all  been  tried  in  turn.  And 
what  had  they  effected  ?  So  mightily  grew  and  prevailed  the  demand 
for  the  Scriptures,  that  even  while  Endhoven  lay  in  prison  at  Ant- 
werp and  the  issue  of  his  case  was  still  doubtful,  another  Antwerp 
printer,  if  not   indeed   more   than   one,  had   judged   the   prospect   of 


tyndale's  new  testament.  89 

pecuniary  profit  worth  the  risk  of  embarking  in  the  same  enterprise. 
On  the  23d  of  May,  1527,  Hackett  writes  to  Wolsey,  that  in  spite  of 
all  his  efforts,  "  some  new  printers  of  the  town  of  Antwerp  were  offer- 
ing in  the  market  divers  English  books,  called  '  The  New  Testa- 
ment,' "  and  that  he  had  heard  of  "  more  than  two  thousand  such 
like  English  books"  having  been  offered  for  sale  at  the  late  Frankfort 
fair.  Hundreds  of  these  were  already  on  English  ground.  One  John 
Raimund,  or  Ruremonde,  an  Antwerp  printer,  was  convicted  of  hav- 
ing caused  fifteen  hundred  of  Tyndale's  New  Testaments  to  be  printed 
at  Antwerp,  and  of  bringing  five  hundred  copies  into  England  at  one 
time.  To  such  an  extent  had  the  city  of  London,  especially,  been 
pervaded  by  the  influence,  within  the  space  of  two  years,  that  it  was 
deemed  unsafe,  for  one  who  had  been  at  all  "  inclined  to  the  new 
learning,"  even  to  breathe  its  air.  Thus,  as  recorded  in  Tunstal's 
Register  of  the  trials  in  his  diocese,  Sebastian  Herris,  curate  of  the 
Parish  Church  of  Kensington,  being  charged  with  possessing  a  copy 
of  Tyndale's  New  Testament,  is  forbidden,  at  his  dismissal,  to  tarry 
or  abide  within  the  city  of  London,  {being  so  dangerous  a  place  to  be 
infected  zvith  heresy)  above  a  day  and  a  night  ;  but  to  go  thence  else- 
where, and  not  approach  neanthe  city  anywhere,  four  miles  in  circuit, 
for  the  space  of  two  years. 

The  enemies  of  light  could  not  yet  perceive  the  futility  of  their  war- 
fare ;  and  while  the  divine  seed  sown,  as  it  were,  by  the  winds  of 
heaven,  was  taking  root  in  every  direction,  they  were  still  erecting 
their  clumsy  bulwarks  to  prevent  its  entrance  into  England. 


CHAPTER    XIV. 

tyndale's  reformatory  writings. 

Wickliffe  had  closed  his  labors  as  reformer  by  giving  the  Bible 
to  his  countrymen.  In  his  case,  this  was  the  natural  order  of  things  ; 
for  the  mind  of  his  age  needed  to  be  awakened  by  a  long  preparatory 
process  to  a  consciousness  of  the  want  which  the  Scriptures  only 
could  supply.  With  Tyndale  the  process  was  just  the  reverse.  The 
voice  of  his  age  cried  out  for  the  word  of  God  ;  and  it  was  his  first 
object,  by  meeting  this  demand,  to  lay  a  broad  and  sure  foundation 
for  the  great  work  of  reform,  which  he  saw  to  be  accomplished.  The 
New  Testament  being  completed  and  sent  forth  on  its  mission,  he 
now  appears  as  the  practical  reformer,  and  applies  its  teachings  in  a 
direct  assault  upon  the  doctrines  and  practices  of  the  Romish  clergy. 

Well  worthy  does  he  show  himself,  in  this  respect  also,  to  be  the 
Elishaof  the  elder  prophet.  In  his  exposures  of  time-honored  abuses, 
and  his  stern  rebukes  of  those  "  Cesarean  Prelates"  who  sought  to 
perpetuate  them  for  their  own  selfish  ends,  we  see  the  same  fearless 
moral  energy,  the  same  reference  to  the  supreme  authority  of  God's 
word,  and  heartfelt  love  and  respect  for  the  common  people,  which 
distinguished  Wickliffe.  With  this  deep  earnestness  was  mingled, 
moreover,  a  vein  of  homely,  racy  humor,  not  unlike  that  of  Luther, 
which  imparts  often  a  vivacity  and  quaint  force  to  his  indignant 
remonstrances  and  appeals,  well  adapted  to  influence  the  popular 
mind. 

In  these  writings  we  find  abundant  confirmation  of  one  important 
fact,  before  alluded  to  ;  that  from  the  days  of  Wickliffe  there  had 
been  little  progress,  in  any  respect,  connected  with  the  essential  well- 
being  of  the  nation,  except  so  far  as  the  influence  of  the  Bible  had 
extended.  In  the  character  of  the  clergy,  the  state  of  learning  in  the 
universities,  the  moral  condition  of  the  people,  and  the  recognition  of 
their  rights,  either  civil  or  religious,  on  the  part  of  government,  the 
main  current  had  flowed  steadily  toward  a  lower  deep  of  darkness, 
degradation,  and  oppression.  The  counter  current  which  was  now 
beginning  to  make  itself  felt  in  every  sphere,  owed  all  its  springs,  and 
for  the  most  part  can  be  directly  traced,  to  the  reviving  influence  of 
the    Scriptures.     A    century    and    a    half    nearly,    during  which   the 


tyndale's  reformatory  writings.  91 

vernacular  Bible  had  been  thrust  out  of  the  reach  of  the  mass  of  the 
community,  had  developed  in  the  character  of  the  English  race  no 
inherent  forces  for  retrieving  its  condition,  and  forming  itself  into  a 
free,  intelligent  and  virtuous  people. 

The  two  treatises  with  which  he  immediately  followed  his  New 
Testament,  marked  him  out  before  all  Christendom  as  a  standard 
bearer  in  the  cause  of  the  Bible  and  the  people,  against  that  of  the 
Pope  and  priesthood.  He  had  sent  forth  the  New  Testament  without 
his  name  ;  "following,"  as  he  says,  "the  counsel  of  Christ,  which 
exhorteth  men  to  do  thei*  good  works  secretly,  and  to  be  content 
with  the  conscience  of  well-doing."  The  consequence  was,  however, 
that  certain  anonymous  works  against  the  prelacy  by  other  hands,  writ- 
ten in  a  spirit  of  bitterness  and  railing  with  which  Tyndale  had  no 
fellowship,  were  confidently  ascribed  to  him.  In  the  preface  to  the 
first  of  these  treatises,  therefore,  he  disavows  the,  books  falsely 
charged  to  him,  and  henceforth  appears  under  his  own  name.  From 
this  time  onward  it  was  a  name  of  power  among  both  the  friends  and 
enemies  of  the  truth  in  England. 

The  "Parable  of  the  Wicked  Mammon,"  is  a  development  rich 
with  Scripture  knowledge  and  Christian  experience,  of  the  connec- 
tion between  faith  and  works  in  our  salvation,  and  strikes  at  the  root 
of  the  popish  trust  in  mere  outward  observances  and  ceremonies. 
Two  or  three  brief  quotations  must  suffice  from  this  work,  as  a  sam- 
ple of  its  manner,  and  an  illustration  of  the  pure  morality  and  uni- ' 
versal  benevolence  resulting  from  the  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith, 
rightly  understood  and  truly  received  into  the  heart. 

"  The  Spirit  of  God  accompanieth  faith,  and  bringeth  with  her 
light,  wherewith  a  man  beholdeth  himself  in  the  law  of  God,  and 
seeth  his  miserable  bondage  and  captivity,  and  humbleth  himself, 
and  abhorreth  himself  ;  she  bringeth  God's  promises  of  all  good 
things  in  Christ.  God  worketh  with  his  word  and  in  his  word.  And 
as  his  word  is  preached,  faith  rooteth  herself  in  the  heart  of  the  elect, 
and  as  faith  entereth  and  the  word  of  God  is  believed,  the  power  of 
God  looseth  the  heart  from  the  captivity  and  bondage  under  sin,  and 
knitteth  and  coupleth  him  unto  God,  and  to  the  will  of  God  ;  altereth 
him,  changeth  him  clean,  fashioneth  and  forgeth  him  anew,  giveth 
him  power  to  love  and  to  do  that  which  before  it  was  impossible  for 
him  either  to  love  or  do,  and  turneth  him  unto  a  new  nature,  so  that 
he  loveth  that  which  before  he  hated,  and  hateth  that  which  before  he 
loved  ;  and  is  clean  altered  and  changed,  and  contrary  disposed  ;  and 
is  knit  and  coupled  fast  to  God's  will,  and  naturally  bringeth  forth 
good  works     .     .     .     And  that  doth  he  of  his  own  accord,  as  a  tree 


92  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

bringeth  forth  fruit  of  her  own  accord.  And  as  thou  needest  not  to 
bid  a  tree  bring  forth  fruit,  so  there  is  no  law  to  put  unto  him  that  be- 
lieveth  and  is  justified  by  faith.  .  .  .  And  as  a  whole  man  when 
he  is  athirst  tarrieth  but  for  drink,  and  when  he  is  hungry  abideth  but 
for  meat,  and  then  drinketh  and  eateth  naturally,  even  so  is  the  faithful 
ever  athirst  and  an  hungered  after  the  will  of  God,  and  tarrieth  but 
for  occasion.  Where  faith  is  mighty  and  strong,  there  is  love  fervent 
and  deeds  plenteous,  and  done  with  exceeding  meekness  ;  where 
faith  is  weak,  there  love  is  cold,  and  the  deeds  few,  and  seldom  bears 
flowers  and  blossoms  in  winter. 

"  The  order  of  love  and  charity  which  some  dream,  the  Gospel  of 
Christ  knoweth  not  of  ;  that  a  man  should  begin  at  himself,  and  serve 
himself  first,  and  then  descend,  I  wot  not  by  what  steps.  Love  seek- 
eth  not  her  own  profit,  but  maketh  a  man  to  forget  himself,  and  to 
turn  his  profit, to  another  man,  as  Christ  sought  not  himself  or  his 
own  profit,  but  ours.  The  term,  '  myself,'  is  not  in  the  Gospel  ; 
neither  yet  father,  mother,  brother,  kinsman,  that  one  should  be  pre- 
ferred in  love  above  another.  But  Christ  is  all  in  all  things.  Every 
Christian  man  to  another  is  Christ  himself,  and  thy  neighbor's  need 
hath  as  good  a  right  to  thy  goods  as  hath  Christ  himself,  which  is  heir 
and  lord  overfall.  And  look,  what  thou  owest  to  Christ,  that  thou 
owest  to  thy  neighbor's  need  ;  to  thy  neighbor  owest  thou  thine  heart, 
thyself,  and  all  that  thou  hast  and  canst  do.  ...  In  Christ  we 
are  all  of  one  degree,  without  respect  of  persons.  Notwithstanding, 
though  a  Christian  man's  heart  be  open  to  all  men,  and  receiveth  all 
men,  yet,  because  that  his  ability  of  goods  extendeth  not  so  far,  this 
provision  is  made,  that  every  man  shall  care  for  his  own  household, 
as  father  and  mother,  and  thine  elders  that  have  holpen  thee,  wife, 
children  and  servants.  When  thou  hast  done  thy  duty  to  thy  house- 
hold, and  yet  hast  farther  abundance  of  the  blessing  of  God,  that  thou 
owest  to  the  poor  that  cannot  labor,  or  would  labor  and  can  get  no 
work,  and  are  destitute  of  friends.  ...  If  thy  neighbors  which 
thou  knowest  be  served,  and  thou  yet  have  superfluity,  and-  hearest 
necessity  to  be  among  the  brethren  a  thousand  miles  off,  to  them  thou 
art  debtor.  Yea,  to  the  very  infidels  we  be  debtors  if  they  need,  so 
far  forth  as  we  maintain  them  not  against  Christ,  or  to  blaspheme 
Christ.  Thus  is  every  man  that  needeth  help  thy  father,  mother, 
sister,  and  brother  in  Christ  ;  even  as  every  man  that  dotli  the  will  of 
the  Father  is  father,  mother,  brother,  and  sister  unto  Christ." 

The  work  which  followed  this—"  The  Obedience  of  a  Christian 
Man" — is  an  exposition  of  the  teachings  of  Scripture  on  the  social 
duties   of  men,  in   all  the  relations  of  life.      It  was    intended  as  a 


TYNDALE'S    REFORMATORY   WRITINGS.  93 

defence  of  the  Bible  against  the  charge  brought  by  the  clergy,  that  its 
circulation  among  the  laity  tends  to  confusion  and  insubordination  in 
society.  It  proves  that  it  is  they,  on  the  contrary,  who,  by  substituting 
for  the  true  light  of  God's  word  their  own  false  doctrines  and  tradi- 
tions, have  subverted  all  social  order  and  virtue  ;  and  that  their  zeal 
against  the  Bible  is  but  hatred  of  that  which,  if  permitted  to  go 
freely  among  the  people,  would  strip  them  of  their  ill-gotten  power. 

In  the  first  part  of  the  treatise,  husbands  and  wives,  parents  and 
children,  masters  and  servants,  sellers  and  buyers,  rulers  and  ruled, 
are  taught  their  mutual  duties,  as  set  forth  by  direct  Scripture  pre- 
cept, or  as  plainly  deducible  from  its  great  law  of  love.  He  is  no  less 
faithful  to  the  king  than  to  the  subject,  warning  him  of  the  dangers  to 
which  monarchs  are  especially  liable,  and  of  the  final  account  to  be 
rendered  by  him  of  all  he  has  done  in  his  high  office,  both  good  and 
bad.  It  is  a  strong  proof  that  the  tyrannical  course  of  Henry  VIII. 
was  due  less  to  his  natural  disposition,  than  to  the  evil  influence  of  his 
spiritual  guides,  that  he  was  deeply  impressed  by  this  treatise  when  he 
first  read  it,  and  remarked  :  "  This  is  a  book  for  me,  and  for  all 
kings." 

The  second  part  is  a  searching  exposure  of  the  abuses  practised  on 
the  people  by  the  priesthood,  their  corruption  of  Christian  doctrines 
and  ordinances  ;  the  "feigned  ordinances,"  by  which  they  rule  so 
cruelly  over  the  consciences  of  men,  and  wring  from  them  their 
worldly  goods  ;  their  usurpation  of  the  civil  power,  and  the  conse- 
quent impoverishment,  internal  confusion,  and  foreign  wars,  into 
which  their  insatiable  ambition  and  avarice  has  plunged,  the  realm. 

"  '  Curse  them  [so  he  represents  the  Pope  as  saying  to  his  vassals, 
the  clergy]  four  times  in  the  year.  Make  them  afraid  of  everything, 
and  namely  [especially]  to  touch  mine  anointed  ;  and  make  them  to 
fear  the  sentence  of  the  Church,  suspensions,  excommunications,  and 
curses.  Be  they  right  or  wrong,  bear  them  in  hand  that  they  are  to 
be  feared  yet.  Preach  me  and  mine  authority,  and  how  terrible  a 
thing  my  curse  is,  and  how  black  it  makes  their  souls.  On  the  holi- 
days, which  were  ore  lined  to  preach  God's  word,  set  up  long  ceremo- 
nies, long  matins,  long  Masses,  and  long  even-songs,  and  all  in  Latin, 
that  they  understand  not  ;  and  roll  them  in  darkness,  that  ye  may 
lead  them  wherever  ye  will.  And  lest  such  things  should  be  too  tedi- 
ous, sing  some,  pipe  some,  ring  the  bells,  and  lull  them  and  rock 
them  asleep.'  And  yet  Paul  (2  Cor.  xiv.)  forbiddeth  to  speak  in  the 
church  or  congregation,  save  in  the  tongue  that  all  understand.  For 
the  layman  thereby  is  not  edified  or  taught.  How  shall  the  layman 
say   Amen   (saith   Paul)   to   thy  blessing  or  thanksgiving,   when    he 


94  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

wotteth  not  what  thou  sayest  ?  He  wotteth  not  whether  thou  bless  or 
curse. 

"  '  What  then  saith  the  Pope  ? '  What  care  I  for  Paul  ?  1  command, 
by  virtue  of  obedience,  to  read  the  Gospel  in  Latin  ;  let  them  not 
pray  but  in  Latin  ;  no,  not  their  Pater  Noster.  If  any  be  sick,  go 
also  and  say  them  a  Gospel,  and  all  in  Latin  ;  yea,  to  the  very  corn 
and  fruits  of  the  field,  in  the  procession  week,  preach  the  Gospel  in 
Latin.  Make  the  people  believe  that  it  shall  grow  the  better.'  It  is 
as  good  to  preach  it  to  swine  as  to  men,  if  thou  preach  it  in  a  tongue 
which  they  understand  not. — How  shall  I  prepare  myself  to  God's 
commandments  ?     How  shall  I  be  thankful  to   Christ  for  his  kind- 

m 

ness  ?  How  shall  I  believe  the  truths  and  promises  which  God  hath 
sworn,  while  thou  tellest  them  unto  me  in  a  tongue  which  I  under- 
stand not  ? 

"  '  What  then,'  saith  my  Lord  of  Canterbury,  to  a  priest  that  would 
have  had  the  New  Testament  gone  forth  in  English;  'what,'  saith 
he,  '  wouldst  thou  that  the  lay  people  should  wete  what  we  do  ?'  ' 

"  Mark  well  how  many  parsonages  or  vicarages  are  there  in  the 
realm,  which,  at  the  least,  have  a  plough-land  *  apiece.  Then  note 
the  land  of  bishops,  abbots,  priors,  nuns,  knights  of  St.  John,  cathe- 
dral churches,  colleges,  chauntries,  and  free  chapels.  For  though  the 
house  fall  in  decay,  and  the  ordinance  of  the  founder  be  lost,  yet  will 
they  not  lose  their  lands.  What  cometh  once  in,  may  never  more 
out.  They  make  a  free  chapel  of  it,  so  that  he  which  enjoyeth  it 
shall  do  nought  therefore.  Beside  all  this,  how  many  chaplains  do 
gentlemen  find  at  their  own  cost,  in  their  own  houses  ?  How  many 
sing  for  souls  by  testaments  ?  Then  the  proving  of  testaments,  the 
prizing  of  goods,  the  Bishop  of  Canterbury's  prerogative.  Is  that  not 
much  through  the  realm  in  a  year  ?  Four  offering  days,  and  privy 
tithes.  There  is  no  servant,  but  that  he  shall  pay  somewhat  of  his 
wages.  None  shall  receive  the  body  of  Christ  at  Easter,  be  he  never 
so  poor  a  beggar,  or  never  so  young  a  lad  or  maid,  but  they  must  pay 
somewhat  for  it.  Then  mortuaries  for  forgotten  tithes  (say  they). 
And  yet  what  parson  or  vicar  is  there,  that  will  forget  to  have  a  pig- 
eon-house, to  peck  up  somewhat  both  at  sowing-time  and  harvest, 
when  corn  is  ripe  ?  They  will  forget  nothing.  No  man  shall  die  in 
their  debt  ;  or  if  any  man  do,  he  shall  pay  it  when  he  is  dead.     They 

*  "  The  measurement  of  the  plough-land  varied  in  different  counties,  and  in 
the  same  counties  at  different  times.  In  general,  it  designated  as  much  arable 
land  as  could  be  managed  and  tilled  by  one  plough,  and  its  team  of  horses  or 
oxen,  in  the  year  ;  having  meadow,  pasture,  and  houses  and  cattle  attached  to 
it.  "—Note  to  Works  of  the  Eng.  Reformers,  vol.  i.,  p.  544. 


tyndale's  reformatory  writings.  95 

will  lose  nothing.  Why  ?  It  is  God's  ;  it  is  not  theirs.  It  is  St. 
Hubert's  rents,  St.  Alban's  lands,  St.  Edmond's  right,  St.  Peter's 
patrimony. — Item — if  a  man  die  in  another  man's  parish,  besides  that 
he  must  pay  at  home  a  mortuary  for  forgotten  tithes,  he  must  there, 
also,  pay  the  best  he  there  hath.  Whether  it  be  a  horse  of  twenty 
pound,  or  how  good  soever  he  be  ;  either  a  chain  of  gold  of  an  hun- 
dred marks,  or  five  hundred  pounds,  if  it  so  chance.  Then  bead- 
rolls.  Item — christenings,  churchings,  banns,  weddings,  offering  at 
weddings,  offering  of  wax  and  lights,  which  come  to  their  damage  ; 
beside  the  superstitious  waste  of  wax,  in  torches  and  tapers,  through- 
out the  land.  Then  brothers  and  pardoners. — What  get  they  also  by 
confessions  ?     .  Soul-masses,   dirges,  month-minds,  peace- 

minds,  All-souls  day,  and  trentals.  The  mother  Church  and  the  high 
altar  must  have  somewhat  in  every  testament.  Offerings  at  priest's 
first  masses.  Item — no  man  is  professed,  of  whatsoever  religion  it  be 
[i.e.  of  whatever  clerical  order],  but  he  must  bring  somewhat.  Then 
hallowing  or  rather  conjuring  of  churches,  chapels,  altars,  super-altars, 
chalice,  vestment,  bells.  Then  book,  bell,  candlestick,  organs,  vest- 
ments, copes,  altar-cloths,  surplices  ;  then  towels,  basins,  ewers, 
censer,  and  all  manner  of  ornaments,  must  be  found  them  freely, 
they  will  not  give  a  mite  thereunto.  Last  of  all,  what  swarms  of  beg- 
ging friars  are  there  !  The  parson  sheareth,  the  vicar  shaveth,  the 
parish  priest  polleth,  the  friar  scrapeth,  and  the  pardoner  pareth  ;  we 
lack  but  a  butcher  to  pull  off  the  skin. 

"  What  get  they  in  their  spiritual  law  (as  they  call  it)  in  a  year,  at 
the  arches,  and  in  every  diocese  ?  What  get  the  commissioners,  and 
officials,  with  their  somners  and  apparitors,  by  bawdrey  in  a  year  ? 
Shall  ye  not  find  curates  enough,  which  to  flatter  the  commissioners 
and  officials  withal,  that  they  may  go  quit  themselves,  shall  open  to 
them  the  confessions  of  the  richest  of  their  parishes,  whom  they  cite 
privately,  and  lay  to  their  charges  secretly.  If  they  desire  to  know 
their  accusers,  '  Nay,'  say  they,  '  the  matter  is  known  well  enough, 
and  to  more  than  ye  are  ware  of.  Come,  lay  your  hand  on  the  book  ; 
if  ye  forswear  yourself,  we  shall  bring  proofs  ;  we  will  handle  you,  we 
will  make  an  ensample  of  you.'  Oh,  how  terrible  are  they  !  '  Come 
and  swear,'  say  they,  '  that  thou  will  be  obedient  to  our  injunctions  !' 
And  by  that  craft,  wring  they  their  purses,  and  make  them  drop  as 
long  as  there  is  a  penny  in  them." 

Not  given  to  filthy  lucre,  but  abhorring  covetousness  ;'  and  as 
Peter  saith,  '  Taking  the  oversight  of  them,  not  as  though  ye  were 
compelled  thereunto,  but  willingly.     Not  of  desire  of  filthy  lucre,  but 


g6  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

of  a  good  mind  ;  not  as  though  ye  were  lords  over  the  parishes. 
Over  the  parishes,  quoth  he  !  O  Peter,  Peter,  thou  wast  too  long  a 
fisher  ;  thou  wast  never  brought  up  at  the  Arches,  neither  wast  Master 
of  the  Rolls,  nor  yet  Chancellor  of  England.  They  are  not  content 
to  reign  over  king  and  emperor,  and  the  whole  earth  ;  but  challenge 
authority  also  in  heaven  and  in  hell.  It  is  not  enough  for  them  to 
reign  over  all  that  are  quick,  but  have  created  them  a  purgatory,  to 
reign  also  over  the  dead,  and  to  have  one  kingdom  more  than  God 
himself  hath." 

"  They  take  away  first  God's  word,  with  faith,  hope,  peace,  unity, 
love,  and  concord  ;  then  house  and  land,  rent  and  fee,  tower  and 
town,  goods  and  cattle,  and  the  very  meat  out  of  men's  mouths.  All 
these  live  by  purgatory.  When  others  weep  for  their  friends,  they 
sing  merrily  ;  when  others  lose  their  friends,  they  get  friends.  The 
Pope,  with  all  his  pardons,  is  grounded  on  purgatory.  Priests, 
monks,  canons,  friars,  with  all  other  swarms  of  heretics,  do  but  em- 
ploy purgatory,  and  fiH  hell.  Every  Mass,  say  they,  delivereth  one 
soul  out  of  purgatory.  If  that  were  true — yea,  if  ten  Masses  were 
enough  for  one  soul — yet  were  the  parish  priests  and  curates  of  every 
parish  sufficient  to  scour  purgatory.  All  the  other  costly  work  of 
men  might  be  well  spared." 

In  the  course  of  the  treatise  he  explains  his  view  of  what  the  Scrip- 
tures teach  respecting  the  Sacraments,  the  offices  in  the  Church,  the 
support  of  the  clergy,  and  their  relation  to  the  civil  power.  In  regard 
to  all  these,  his  views  coincide  in  all  essential  points  with  those  of 
Wickliffe.  There  are  but  two  Sacraments,  Baptism  and  the  Lord's 
Supper  ;  and  their  efficacy  depends  on  the  spirit  in  which  they  are 
received. — There  are  but  two  offices  in  the  Church  of  Christ,  Bishop, 
or  Elder,  and  Deacon.  The  duty  of  the  first  is  to  serve  the  Church 
in  spiritual  things,  being  "  nothing  but  an  officer  to  teach,  and  to 
minister  the  Sacraments  ordained,  and  not  to  be  a  mediator  between 
God  and  us."  "  According  as  every  man  believeth  Clod's  promises, 
longeth  for  them,  and  is  diligent  to  pray  unto  God  to  fulfill  them,  so 
is  his  prayer  heard,  as  good  the  prayer  of  a  cobbler,  as  of  a  cardinal  ; 
and  of  a  butcher,  as  of  a  bishop  ;  and  the  blessing  of  a  baker  that 
knoweth  the  truth  is  as  good  as  the  blessing  of  our  most  holy  father 
the  pope."  "Christ,  when  he  had  fulfilled  his  course,  anointed  his 
apostles  and  disciples  with  the  same  spirit,  and  sent  them  forth, 
without  all  manner  of  disguising,  like  other  men  also,  to  preach  the 
atonement  and  peace  which  Christ  had  made  between  God  and  man. 
The  apostles,  likewise,  disguised  no  man,  but  chose  men  anointed  with 


tyndale's  reformatory  writings.  97 

the  same  spirit  ;  one  to  preach  the  word  of  God,  whom  we  call,  after 
the  Greek  tongue,  a  bishop  or  priest  ;  that,  is,  in  English,  an  overseer 
and  an  elder."  "  This  overseer,  because  he  was  taken  from  his  own 
business  and  labor  to  preach  God's  word  unto  the  parish,  hath  right, 
by  the  authority  of  his  office,  to  challenge  an  honest  living  of  the  par- 
ish, as  thou  mayst  see  in  the  Evangelists,  and  also  in  Paul.  For  who 
will  have  a  servant,  and  will  not  give  him  meat,  drink,  and  raiment, 
and  all  things  necessary  ?  How  they  would  pay  him,  whether  in 
money,  or  assign  him  so  much  rent,  or  in  tithes,  as  the  guise  now  is 
in  many  countries,  was  at  their  liberty."  "  Likewise  in  every  con- 
gregation chose  they  another  after  the  same  example,  and  even  so 
anointed,  as  it  is  to  see  in  the  said  chapter  of  Paul,  and  Acts  vi. 
Whom  after  the  Greek  word  we  call  deacon  ;  that  is  to  say,  in  Eng- 
lish, a  servant,  or  a  minister,  whose  office  it  was  to  help  and  assist  the 
priest,  and  gather  up  his  duty,  and  gather  for  the  poor  of  the  parish, 

which  were  destitute  of  friends,  and  could  not  work 

Every  man  gave  according  to  his  ability,  and  as  God  put  into  his 
heart,  to  the  maintenance  of  the  priest,  deacon,  and  other  common 
ministers,  and  of  the  poor,  and  to  find  learned  men  to  teach,  and  so 
forth."  "  '  We,'  will  they  say,  '  are  the  pope,  cardinal,  and  bishops  ; 
all  authority  is  ours.  The  Scripture  pertaineth  unto  us,  and  is  our 
possession.  And  we  have  a  law,  that  whosoever  presumes  to  preach 
without  the  authority  of  the  bishops,  is  excommunicate  in  the  deed- 
doing.  Whence,  therefore,  hast  thou  thine  authority  ?'  will  they  say. 
'  The  old  Pharisees  had  the  Scripture  in  captivity,  likewise,  and 
asked  Christ  :  By  what  authority  doest  thou  .these  things  ?  . 
Christ  asked  them  another  question,  and  so  will  I  do  our  hypocrites. 
Who  sent  you  ?  God  ?  Nay,  he  that  is  sent  of  God,  speaketh  God's 
word.  Now  speak  ye  not  God's  word,  nor  anything,  save  your  own 
laws,  made  clean  contrary  unto  God's  word,  .  .  .  And  as  for 
mine  authority,  or  who  sent  me,  I  report  me  unto  my  works,  as 
Christ.  If  God's  word  bear  record  that  I  say  truth,  why  should  any 
man  doubt  but  that  God.  the  father  of  truth  and  of  light,  hath  sent 
me  ?  .  .  .  'By  this  means,,  thou  wilt  that  every  man  be  a 
preacher,'  will  they  say.  '  Nay,  verily.  For  God  will  that  not,  and 
therefore,  will  I  it  not  ;  no  more  than  I  would  that  every  man  were 
mayor  of  London  or  every  man  of  the  realm  King  thereof.  God  is 
not  the  God  of  dissension  and  strife,  but  of  unity  and  peace,  and  of  good 
order.  T  will,  therefore,  that  where  a  congregation  is  gathered  together 
in  Christ,  one  be  chosen  after  the  rule  of  Paul,  and  that  he  only 
preach,  and  else  no  man  openly  :  but  that  every  man  teach  his  house- 
hold after  the  same  doctrine.      But  if  the  preacher  preach  false,  then 


98  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

whosoever's  heart  God  moveth,  to  the  same  it  shall  be  lawful  to 
rebuke  and  improve  the  false  teacher,  with  the  clear  and  manifest 
Scripture,  and  that  same  is,  no  doubt,  a  true  prophet  sent  of  God. 
For  the  Scripture  is  God's,  and  their's  that  believe,  and  not  the  false 
prophets'." 

The  law  of  spiritual  life  and  growth,  as  contained  within  each  con- 
gregation of  believers,  being  derived  continually  from  Christ,  the  ever 
present  head,  is  beautifully  developed  in  the  following  passage  : 

"  Here  [within  the  congregations  of  Christ]  all  thing  is  free  and 
willingly  ;  and  the  Holy  Ghost  bringeth  them  together,  which  maketh 
their  wills  free,  and  ready  to  bestow  themselves  on  their  neighbor's 
profit  :  and  they  that  come  offer  themselves,  and  all  that  they  have, 
or  can  do  to  serve  the  Lord  and  their  brethren  ;  and  every  man,  as 
he  is  found  apt  and  meet  to  serve  his  neighbor,  is  put  into  office. 
And  of  the  Holy  Ghost  are  they  sent,  with  the  consent  of  their 
brethren,  and  with  their  own  consent  also  ;  and  God's  word  ruleth  in 
that  congregation,  into  which  word  every  man  confirmeth  [conform- 
eth]  his  will  ;  and  Christ,  which  is  always  present,  is  the  head." 

He  is  equally  explicit  in  regard  to  the  clerical  claim,  still  as  per- 
fectly intact  as  in  the  days  of  Wickliffe,  of  exemption  from  civil  juris- 
diction. In  the  summary,  at  the  close  of  the  book,  of  its  contents,  he 
says  : 

"  T  proved  also  that  all  men,  without  exception,  are  under  the 
temporal  sword,  whatsoever  names  they  give  themselves.  Because 
the  priest  is  chosen  out  of  the  laymen  to  teach  this  obedience,  is  that 
a  lawful  cause  for  him  to  disobey  ?  Because  he  preacheth  that  the 
laymen  may  not  steal,  is  it  therefore  lawful  for  him  to  steal  unpun- 
ished ?  Because  thou  teachest  me  that  I  may  not  kill,  or  if  I  do,  the 
King  must  kill  me  again,  is  it  therefore  lawful  for  thee  to  kill  and  go 
free  ?     .  The  priests  of  the  old  law,  with  their  high  bishop, 

Aaron,  and  all  his  successors,  though  they  were  anointed  by  God's 
commandment  and  appointed  to  serve  God  in  his  temple,  and 
exempt  from  all  offices  and  ministering  of  worldly  matters,  were  yet 
under  the  temporal  sword,  if  they  brake  the  laws.  ...  I  proved, 
also,  that  no  king  hath  power  to  grant  them  such  liberties." 

The  clergy  still  held  the  monopoly  of  all  the  high  secular  offices  of 
the  kingdom.      Thus  speaks  the  reformer  on  this  point  : 

"  Let  kings  take  their  duty  of  their  subjects,  and  that  is  necessary 
to  the  defence  of  the  realm.  Let  them  rule  their  realms  themselves, 
with  the  help  of  laymen  that  are  sage,  wise,  learned,  and  expert.  Is 
it  not  a  shame  above  all  shames,  and  a  monstrous  thing,  that  no  man 
should  be  found  able  to  govern  a  worldly  kingdom,  save  by  bishop  and 


tyndale's  reformatory  writings.  99 

prelates,  that  have  forsaken  the  world,  "and  are  taken  out  of  the 
world,  and  appointed  to  preach  the  Kingdom  of  God  ?  ...  To 
preach  God's  word  is  too  much  for  half  a  man  ;  and  to  minister  a 
temporal  kingdom  is  too  much  for  half  a  man  ;  either  other  requireth 
an  whole  man  ;  one,  therefore,  cannot  well  do  both.  .  .  .  Paul 
saith  in  the  ninth  chapter  of  the  first  Corinthians,  '  Woe  is  me  if  I 
preach  not.'  A  terrible  saying,  verily,  for  popes,  cardinals,  and 
bishops.  If  he  had  said,  '  Woe  be  unto  me  if  I  fight  not,  and  move 
princes  to  war,  or  if  I  increase  not  St.  Peter's  patrimony  '  (as  they 
call  it),  it  had' been  a  more  easy  saying  for  them." 

The  Preface  to  this  book,  itself  about  thirty  pages  in  length,  is 
properly  a  tract  in  defence  of  the  translation  of  the  Scriptures  into 
the  mother  tongue,  and  their  unrestricted  use  by  the  laity.  He 
argues  this  from  the  fact,  that  Moses  gave  the  people  of  Israel  the  law 
in  their  mother  tongue  ;  that  the  Prophets  wrote,  and  David  uttered 
his  psalms  in  the  mother  tongue  ;  that  the  sermons  recorded  in  the 
Acts  were  preached  to  the  people  in  the  mother  tongue  ;  that  the 
Bible  was  translated  by  Jerome  into  his  mother  tongue. — "  What 
should  be  the  cause,"  he  asks,  "  that  we,  which  walk  in  the  broad 
day,  should  not  see  as  well  as  they  that  walked  in  the  night,  or  that 
we  should  not  see  as  well  at  noon  as  they  did  in  the  twilight  ?  Came 
Christ  to  make  the  world  more  blind  ?  By  this  means,  Christ  is  the 
darkness  of  the  world,  and  not  the  light,  as  he  saith  himself."  He 
pleads  for  it,  also,  because  God  in  the  Old  Testament,  required  in  all 
the  people  a  knowledge  of  the  law,  and  Christ,  in  the  New,  com- 
manded to  search  the  Scriptures  ;  because,  as  Christ  foretold,  there 
are  false  Christs  and  false  prophets,  whose  deeds  and  doctrines  must 
be  judged  by  Scripture  ;  because  the  spiritual  guides  of  the  people 
teach  doctrines  contrary  to,  and  subversive  of  each  other,  and  it  can- 
not be  known  which  is  right  but  by  Scripture, 

"  '  Nay,'  say  they,  '  the  Scripture  is  so  hard,  that  thou  couldst 
never  understand  it,  but  by  the  doctors.'  That  is,  I  must  measure 
the  meteyard  by  the  cloth.  Here  be  twenty  cloths  of  divers  lengths, 
and  divers  breadths  ;  how  shall  I  be  sure  of  the  length  of  the  mete- 
yard by  them  ?  I  suppose,  rather  must  I  be  sure  of  the  length  of  the 
meteyard,  and  thereby  measure  and  judge  the  cloths.  If  I  must  first 
believe  the  doctor,  then  is  the  doctor  first  true,  and  the  truth  of  the 
Scripture  dependeth  of  his  truth  ;  .and  so  the  truth  of  God  springeth 
of  the  truth  of  man.  Thus,  antichrist  turneth  the  roots  of  the  trees 
upward."  It  was  pretended,  moreover,  that  no  man  could  under- 
stand Scripture,  till  he  had  made  himself  master  of  philosophy,  by  the 
study  of  Aristotle  and  the  doctors.     This  leads  Tyndale  to  notice  the 


IOO  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

character  of  the  so-called  philosophy  taught  in  the  universities,  which 
we  find  to  be  no  other  than  those  same  solemn  frivolities  of  Duns 
Scotus,  and  the  other  scholastics  which  had  driven  all  true  learning 
out  of  Oxford  in  the  fourteenth  century.  As  then,  it  was  connected 
with  the  bitterest  hostility  to  revelation.  No  one  could  speak  with 
more  authority  on  this  point  than  Tyndale,  who  had  resided  there  so 
many  years,  and  had  partaken  in  the  struggle  consequent  on  the 
attempt  of  Christian  scholars  to  introduce  the  Greek  and  Roman 
classics,  and  the  original  Scriptures  into  the  course  of  academic 
study.  He  maintains  that,  so  far  from  this  philosophy  being  neces- 
sary to  prepare  one  for  a  knowledge  of  the  Scriptures,  these  are 
needed  to  protect  him  from  the  contaminating  influence  of  the  philos- 
ophy. "  And  then,  if  they  go  abroad,  and  walk  by  the  fields  and 
meadows  of  all  manner  of  doctors  and  philosophers,  they  should 
catch  no  harm.  They  should  discern  the  poison  from  the  honey,  and 
bring  home  nothing  but  that  which  is  wholesome." 

"  But  now,"  he  proceeds,  "do  ye  clean  contrary,  ye  drive  them 
from  God's  word,  and  will  let  no  man  come  thereto  until  he  have 
been  two  years  master  of  art.  First  they  nosel  them  in  sophistry,  and 
in  benefundatum.  And  there  corrupt  they  their  judgments  with  appa- 
rent arguments  and  with  alleging  unto  them  texts  of  logic,  of  natural 
philautia,  of  metaphysic  and  moral  philosophy,  and  of  all  manner  of 
books  of  Aristotle,  and  of  all  manner  of  doctors,  which  yet  they  never 
saw.  Moreover,  one  holdeth  this,  another  that  ;  one  is  a  real, 
another  a  nominal.  What  wonderful  dreams  they  have  of  their  pre- 
dicaments, universals,  second  intentions,  qui  dz'tz'es,  haec  scities,  and 
relatives.  And  whether  species  fundata  in  chimera  be  vera  species.  And 
whether  this  proposition  be  true  non  ens  est  aliquid,  whether  ens  be 
tequivocum^  or  univocum. — Ens  is  a  voice  only,  say  some.  Ens  is  uni- 
vocum,  saith  another,  and  descendeth  into  ens  creation,  and  into  ens 
increatum,  per  modos  intrinsccos.  When  they  have  this  way  brawled 
eight,  ten,  or  twelve  years,  or  more,  and  after  that  their  judgments 
are  utterly  corrupt,  then  they  begin  their  divinity  ;  not  at  the  Scripture, 
but  every  man  taketh  a  sundry  doctor,  which  doctors  are  as  sundry, 
and  as  divers,  the  one  contrary  unto  the  other,  as  there  are  divers 
fashions  and  monstrous  shapes,  none  like  another,  among  our  sects  of 
religion.  Every  religion,  every  university,  almost  every  man,  hath  a 
sundry  divinity.  Now  whatsoever  every  man  findeth  with  his  doctor, 
that  is  his  Gospel,  and  that  only  is  true  with  him,  and  that  holdeth  he 
all  his  life  long  ;  and  every  man  to  maintain  his  doctor  withal,  cor- 
rupteth  the  Scripture,  and  fashioneth  it  after  his  own  imagination,  as 
a  potter  doth  his  clay.     Of  what  text  thou  provest  hell,  will  another 


tyndale's  reformatory  writings.  ioi 

prove  purgatory,  another  limbo  patrum,  another  the  .assumption  of  our 
lady,  and  another  shall  prove  of  the  same  text  that  an  ape  hath  a  tail. 
And  of  what  text  the  grave  [gray]  friar  proveth  that  our  lady  was 
without  original  sin,  will  the  black  friar  prove  that  she  was  conceived 
in  original  sin." 

How  finely,  after  this  exposure  of  the  folly  of  human  wisdom,  does 
Tyndale  say  :  "  God  is  not  man's  imagination,  but  only  that  which 
he  saith  of  himself.  God  is  nothing  but  his  law  and  his  promises  ; 
that  is  to  say,  that  which  he  biddeth  thee  to  do,  and  that  which  he 
biddeth  thee  believe  and  hope.  God  is  but  his  word,  as  Christ  saith 
(John  viii.),  I  am  that  I  say  unto  you  ;  that  is  to  say,  That  which  I 
preach  I  am,  my  words  are  spirit  and  life.  God  is  that  only  which  he 
testifieth  of  himself  ;  and  to  imagine  any  other  thing  than  that,  is 
damnable  idolatry.  Therefore  saith  the  118th  Psalm,  Happy  are  they 
which  search  the  testimonies  of  the  Lord  ;  that  is  to  say,  that  which 
God  testifieth  and  witnesseth  unto  us.  But  how  shall  I  that  do, 
when  ye  will  not  let  me  have  his  testimonies  or  witnesses  in  a  tongue 
which  I  understand  ?  Will  ye  resist  God  ?  Will  ye  forbid  him  to 
give  his  Spirit  unto  the  lay,  as  well  as  unto  you  ?  Hath  he  not  made 
the  English  tongue  ?  Why  forbid  ye  him  to  speak  in  the  English 
tongue,  then,  as  well  as  in  Latin  ?" 


CHAPTER   XV. 

CARDINAL    WOLSEY'S    MEASURES    TO    SILENCE    TYNDALE. 

It  is  not  strange  that  a  voice  like  this  should  sorely  have  disturbed 
those  whose  treachery  and  oppression  were  thus  laid  open,  in  plain 
English,  for  all  classes  of  the  laity  to  read  and  comment  on.  No 
wonder  that  Cardinal  Wolsey  and  his  bishops  thought  it  necessary  to 
silence  this  terrible  censor,  who,  from  his  obscure  retreat  in  a  foreign 
land,  could  stretch  forth  his  hand  and  shake  the  very  pillars  of  the 
hierarchy.  From  this  time  it  became  one  of  their  leading  objects,  by 
force  or  fraud,  to  compass  his  apprehension  and  death. 

In  June,  1528,  the  Lord  Cardinal  instructed  Sir  John  Hackett,  still 
envoy  at  the  Court  of  Brabant,  to  procure  from  the  Princess  Regent 
his  arrest,  on  the  charge  of  heresy,  and  that  of  two  other  men,  viz., 
Roye,  erroneously  supposed  to  be  still  engaged  with  him  in  translating 
the  Bible,  and  Harman,  a  wealthy  and  honorable  English  merchant 
residing  in  Antwerp,  who  was  known  to  have  been  zealously  engaged  in 
bringing  the  New  Testament  into  England.  But  Hackett  was  obliged 
to  reply  that  the  Privy  Council,  after  debating  the  case  with  him,  had 
decided  that  it  was  unlawful,  even  for  the  Emperor  himself,  to  deliver 
up  a  heretic,  except  after  examination  first  held  where  he  was  ;  and 
not  then,  except  by  advice  of  Inquisitors  of  the  faith  there  present. 
They  promised,  however,  to  apprehend  the  obnoxious  persons  if  they 
could  be  found,  together  with  their  books  ;  and  if,  on  being  confronted 
with  learned  men  from  England — who  it  was  requested  might  be  sent 
over  for  the  purpose — their  guilt  should  appear,  they  were  to  be  de- 
livered to  Wolsey,  or  punished  there,  "  according  to  their  deeds." 

After  fourteen  days'  search,  Harman  and  his  wife — "  as  greatly  sus- 
pected of  stick  like  faction  as  her  husband  t's" — were  taken  and  com- 
mitted* to  prison,  and  an  inventory  of  their  goods  delivered  to  the 
Emperor.  Still,  Hackett  saw  so  little  prospect  of  success  in  this  case, 
that  he  suggests  to  Wolsey  to  drop  the  charge  of  heresy,  and  demand 
Harman  as  a  traitor  to  the  King  of  England. 

"  I  would,"  writes  this  honorable  ambassador,  "  that  your  G  race  had 
this  Richard  Harman  there  in  England  ;  for,  as  I  hear,  he  is  a  RoetJie 
of  great  mischief.  And  to  get  him  out  of  these  countries,  I  know  no 
better  means    at   this   time,  than,  if   the   King's   Highness   have  any 


wolsey's  measures  to  silence  tyndale.  103 

action  of  treason  at  him,  that  his  Highness,  or  your  Grace,  write  a 
good  letter  to  my  Lady,  that  she  should  send  you  the  aforesaid  Har- 
man,  as  traitor  to  the  King — leaving  the  heresy  beside,  to  the  correc- 
tion of  these  countries,  if  your  Grace  think  so  good  ;  and  in  this  man- 
ner we  may  have  two  strings  to  our  bow  :  for  I  doubt  greatly,  after  the 
statutes  of  these  countries,  that,  revoking  his  heresies,  for  the  first 
time  he  will  escape  with  a  slender  punishment  ;  but  for  treason  to  the 
King  they  cannot  pardon  him  in  these  parts,  after  the  Statutes  of  our 
Intercourse,  dated  the  year  1505.  I  certify  your  Grace,  that  it  were  a 
good  deed,  and  very  convenient,  to  chastise  these  Lutherans  that  be 
accused  of  heresy,  that  they  were  as  well  comprehended  in  the  '  Inter- 
course '  as  traitors  be  ;  for  as  soon  as  they  be  past  the  seas  they  know 
no  more  God,  neither  King." 

Wolsey  seized  on  this  hint,  and  obtained  a  letter  from  the  King,  re- 
questing that  Harman  should  be  given  up  as  a  traitor.  But  the  Prin- 
cess required,  in  turn,  specifications  of  his  crime  ;  and  finally,  Hackett 
informs  his  Grace  that,  "  notwithstanding  the  King's  patent  letters,  the 
Lady  Margaret  would  not  deliver  up  the  heretics."  Mr.  Harman  was 
released,  after  an  imprisonment  of  more  than  seven  months — the  term 
for  which  he  could  be  detained  having  expired,  without  any  proof 
having  been  brought  by  Hackett  of  the  charges  made  against  him. 
But  the  envoy  soon  found  that  he  had  been  meddling  with  a  game  at 
which  two  could  play.  Having  gone  to  Antwerp  a  few  weeks  after, 
on  some  business  for  the  King,  he  found  himself  arrested  at  Harman's 
suit  for  all  the  costs  and  charges  of  his  imprisonment  ;  since  "  the  law 
of  Antwerp  [a  free,  imperial  city],  had  Aforetime  declared  him,  by 
their  sentence,  absolute,  free  and  frank,  of  all  such  actions  as  the 
Margrave,  or  the  Scout  of  Antwerp,  as  officers  of  the  Prince,  by  my 
information  laid  to  his  charge."  Next  day  he  was  obliged  to  answer 
for  himself  before  the  city  Senate  ;  and  after  a  mortifying  detention, 
was  only  permitted  to  depart  on  condition  that  he  should  appear  in 
person,  or  by  his  procurator,  whenever  summoned  for  the  farther 
prosecution  of  the  cause.  On  arriving  at  Brussels  he  made  his  com- 
plaint to  the  Princess  and  her  Council,  who  professed  themselves  much 
displeased  with  the  treatment  he  had  received  ;  but  except  a»  severe 
rebuke  to  the  Lords  of  Antwerp,  and  requisition  that  their  Amant  (the 
officer  who  had  caused  his  arrest)  should  ask  his  pardon,  no  amend 
was  made  for  the  affront,  and  Hackett  did  not  again  find  it  expedient 
to  be  much  in  Antwerp.  The  British  merchant  had  read  him  a  lesson 
which  he  long  had  cause  to  remember. 

All  efforts  to  discover  Tyndale  and  Roye  had  been  thus  far  unsuc- 
cessful, but  Wolsey  was  not  disheartened.      It  had  been   ascertained 


104  ENGLISH    BIBLE    TRANSLATION. 

that  the  Testaments  with  which  Harman  had  been  concerned  "  were 
sent  to  him  out  of  Germany" — a  vexatious  proof  that  Warham's  ex- 
pensive purchase  had  not  exhausted  the  supply.  But  it  might  also 
furnish  a  clue  to  the  translators.  He  therefore  took  into  his  confi- 
dence two  friars  of  Greenwich — West  and  Flegg  by  name — and  dis- 
patched them  secretly  to  Cologne,  with  a  letter  to  counsellor  Rincke 
(the  same  who  lent  his  influence  to  Cochlseus  in  1525)  soliciting  his  aid 
for  the  apprehension  of  these  two  men,  as  well  as  in  buying  up  "  all 
books  printed  in  the  English  language."  They  were  authorized  by 
the  Cardinal  to  draw  on  Hackett  for  whatever  money  was  necessary 
to  effect  these  objects. 

The  honorable  councillor  was  prompt  to  meet  the  wishes  of  his 
great  friend  at  the  Court  of  England.  He  informs  him  that  he  had 
himself  been  to  Frankfort  on  the  business,  and,  "  by  gifts  and  pres- 
ents" had  so  conciliated  the  Frankfort  consuls,  as  well  as  some  of  the 
senators  and  judges,  as  to  secure,  through  their  aid,  possession  of 
"  all  the  books  from  every  quarter,"  which,  but  for  his  labors,  would 
soon  have  been  brought  over  to  England  and  Scotland,  "  inclosed  in 
packages,  artfully  covered  over  with  and  concealed  in  flax.  "  I  have," 
he  adds,  "  lately  brought  the  printer  himself,  John  Schott  [of  Stras- 
burg],  before  the  consuls,  judges,  and  senators  of  Frankfort.  I  put 
him  upon  oath,  that  he  should  confess  whatever  books  he  had  printed 
in  the  English  language,  the  German,  French,  or  any  other  idiom. 
Then,  upon  his  said  oath,  he  confessed  that  he  had  as  yet  printed 
only  one  thousand  books  (sex  quaternionum)  and  one  thousand  (novem 
quaternionum)  and  this  by  the  order  of  Roye  and  Hutchyn  [Tyndalej, 
who,  wanting  money,  were  not  able  to  pay  for  the  books  printed. 
.  .  .  Wherefore,  /  have  purchased  them  almost  all,  and  now  have  them 
in  my  house  at  Cologne."  He  then  desires  instructions  how  he  shall 
dispose  of  them,  and  closes  with  the  suggestion  :  "As  to  myself  and 
mine,  by  the  favor  of  God,  possibly  there  may  be  an  opportunity  for  his 
Royal  Highness  and  your  Grace  to  recompense  us.  May  your  Grace, 
therefore,  prosper  many  happy  years  !" 

Of  Tyndale,  Roye,  or  their  accomplices,  he  could  as  yet  find  no 
trace  ;«but  he  promises,  with  his  "utmost  diligence"  to  ferret  out 
their  haunts,  and  get  them  into  custody.  For  further  consultation 
with  his  Grace  on  this  important  mission,  he  sent  back  West,  together 
with  his  own  son  and  a  confidential  servant,  "  who,"  he  says,  "  will 
conceal  and  keep  quiet  the  whole  matter,  whatsoever  your  Grace  may 
commit  to  them — whom  I  specially  send  over  into  the  presence  of  the 
King  and  your  Grace,  for  the  more  convenient  dispatch  of  this  very 


WOLSEY  S    MEASURES   TO    SILENCE   TYNDALE.  105 

business,  that  I  may  explain  and  execute  the  matter  in  a  way  which 
may  be  acceptable  to  the  King's  grace  and  yours." 

He  seems,  however,  to  have  spent  his  labor,  and  the  money  of  his 
employers,  to  but  little  profit.  The  two  thousand  books  referred  to 
in  his  letter  as  purchased  from  Schott,  were,  no  doubt,  those  anony- 
mous productions  before  alluded  to,  written  by  Roye  and  others 
against  the  Cardinal.  Schott,  who  was  of  course  anxious  to  rid  him- 
self of  his  dead  stock,  may  have  baited  Rincke,  by  pretending  that  it 
consisted,  in  part,  of  works  by  Tyndale  ;  but  it  does  not  appear  that 
he  ever  printed  anything  at  Strasburg. 

As  to  the  reformer  himself,  the  councillor  was  entirely  off  the 
track.  Tyndale  was,  at  this  time,  at  Marburg  in  Hesse  Cassel,  where 
the  new  and  flourishing  Protestant  University,  the  first  ever  estab- 
lished, had  called  together  men  whose  eminent  scholarship  and  con- 
geniality of  views  with  his  own  must  have  rendered  it  a  residence 
equally  delightful  and  advantageous.  During  this  year  and  part  of 
the  next  (1528-9),  the  only  press  then  existing  at  Marburg  was  kept 
in  busy  occupation  by  Tyndale  and  his  beloved  associate  Frith,  with 
new  works  in  English,  for  the  instruction  of  their  countrymen.  Here 
is  dated  the  short  treatise  on  the  Scripture  Doctrine  of  Marriage,  and 
the  exposition  of  1  Cor.  vii.  ;  both  of  which  were  intended  to  coun- 
teract those  lax  and  corrupting  views  of  the  conjugal  relation  which 
had  gained  currency  through  the  influence  of  a  clergy  without  prin- 
ciple and  above  law. 

Meanwhile,  Tyndale's  writings  and  his  New  Testament  were  mak- 
ing steady  progress  in  England,  in  spite  of  all  vigilance  and  opposi- 
tion. It  is  a  deeply  interesting  fact,  that  it  was  among  the  humble 
believers  whom,  under  the  name  of  Lollards,  we  have  seen  enduring 
persecution  for  their  attachment  to  Wickliffe's  Bible,  that  the  most 
eager  interest  was  manifested  in  the  improved  translation.  They  had 
still  their  secret  meetings  for  the  reading  and  exposition  of  the  Scrip- 
tures and  other  devout  exercises,  in  London,  as  also  in  Colchester, 
Witham,  Braintree,  and  various  other  places  in  Essex,  and  in  the 
Friary  of  Clare  in  Suffolk  ;  and  it  was  chiefly  from  their  ranks  that 
the  bishops  were  furnished  with  the  victims,  through  whose  punish- 
ment they  sought  to  check  in  the  community  the  growing  desire  to 
become  acquainted  with  the  Scriptures.  Yet  we  have  the  most  satis- 
factory evidence  that  they  continued  to  increase  in  numbers,  as  well 
as  in  the  depth  and  ardor  of  their  piety,  and  that  their  influence  was 
felt  as  a  powerful  leaven  through  the  humbler  classes  of  the  com- 
munity. These  "  Congregations" — so  they  were  now  called — seem 
to  have  been  strictly  assemblies  of  believers,  organized  on  the  model 


I06  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

of  the  apostolic  Churches,  for  the  stated  worship  of  God,  and  the  en- 
joyment of  the  sacraments.  They  will  come  again  before  our  notice, 
in  the  history  of  the  persecutions  during  the  reign  of  Mary. 

But  alarming  as  was  the  aspect  of  affairs  in  England,  when  Rincke 
made  his  report  to  the  Lord  Cardinal,  that  dignitary  seems  to  have 
given  no  farther  attention  to  the  matter.  Before  the  end  of  the  year, 
he  was  too  busy  in  negotiating  the  King's  divorce,  and  in  otherwise 
propping  up  his  own  falling  fortunes,  to  concern  himself  either  with 
apprehending  heretics,  dr  rewarding  the  services  of  such  friends  as  the 
disinterested  patrician  of  Cologne.  Henceforth,  he  appears  only  as  a 
subordinate  character,  and  a  man  of  higher  mark  takes  the  lead  in  this 
great  conflict. 


CHAPTER    XVI. 

THE    NEW    ANTAGONIST. 

The  steady  progress  of  light,  during  the  two  years  following  the  in- 
troduction of  Tyndale's  New  Testament  into  England,  had  convinced 
the  prelacy  that  it  could  not  be  arrested  by  authority  and  force  alone. 
The  public  mind  was  deeply  infected  with  the  new  opinions,  and  the 
more  they  strove  against  the  influence  by  outward  violence,  the  more 
it  grew.     They  were  at  length  compelled  to  yield  so  much  to  truth,  as 
to  come  down  from  their  proud  position   and  meet  it  in  its  own  way  ; 
to  submit  to  what  they  most  abhorred — the  discussion  of  the  case  be- 
fore the  people,  in  plain  English.     They  felt  too,  little  as  they  would 
have  been  willing  to  confess   it,  that  no  common  opponent   would 
answer,  to  measure  lances  with  William  Tyndale.     They  selected  for 
the  purpose  one  who,  in  natural   genius,  accomplished   scholarship, 
and  power  as  a  writer  was,  by  common  consent,  the  choicest  man  in 
England.      His   readiness   and  felicity   as   an  extempore  orator  had 
gained  him  the    name  of   "  the   English   Demosthenes,"    while  his 
literary  productions  had  placed  him  among  the  most  elegant  Latinists, 
and  the  most  admired  philosophers  and  wits  of  Europe.     He  had  held 
conspicuous  public  stations  already  more  than  twenty  years  ;  and   as 
Advocate,  Under-Sheriff  and  Justice  of  the  Peace  for  the  city  of  Lon- 
don, had  won  the  highest  general  estimation,  as  a  man  of  profound 
legal  knowledge  and  almost  unequalled  sagacity  and  skill  in  the  man- 
agement of  public  business.     In  15 17,  in  compliance  with  the  impera- 
tive command  of  Henry  VIII.,  though  much  against  his  own  wishes, 
he  entered  the  immediate  service  of  the  crown,  and  from  that  time 
exercised   a  leading  influence  on   the  affairs  of  the  realm.     But  his 
power  was  not  merely   that   of  talent   and   station.     His    unspotted 
domestic  virtue,  true  old-Roman  contempt  of  luxury  and  show,  and 
his  unimpeachable  integrity  in  every  public  relation,  in  a  time  of  un- 
surpassed extravagance  and  corruption — when  even    cardinals    and 
bishops  hardly  made  a  secret  of  their  profligacy,  and  bribery  was  the 
rule  in  courts  of  justice — had  given  him  a  moral  weight  in  the  nation, 
such  as  was  possessed  by  no  other  man. 

It  is  not  strange,  then,  that  when  Sir  Thomas  More  consented,  at 
the   solicitation  of  the  bishops,  to  undertake   the    refutation  of  the 


108  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

growing  heresy,  its  opponents  should  have  indulged  the  most  confident 
anticipations  that  its  influence  with  the  popular  mind  was   about  to 
suffer  a  complete  overthrow.      There  were  strong  reasons,  too,  why 
the  friends  of  truth  should  be  satisfied  with  the  choice.      In   addition 
to  Sir  Thomas  More's  reputation  for  candor  and  uprightness,  he  had 
shown  leanings,  in  his  previous  life,  which  might  naturally  lead  them 
to  expect  from  him  greater  liberality  toward  their  views,  than  could 
be  looked  for  from   the  clergy.     He  had  been  early  linked,  by  the 
most   intimate   literary  and   religious  friendships,  with  the  cause  of 
progress.     From  his  youth  he  had  been  a  passionate  lover  of  classic 
learning,  then  so  closely  associated  with  the  study  of  the  Scriptures. 
The  enlightened  and  pious  Dean  Colet,  before  mentioned  as  the  first 
lecturer  on  Paul's  Epistles  at  Oxford,  was  his  spiritual  confidant  and 
adviser,  and  was  regarded  by  him  with  the  reverence  and  affection  due 
to  a  father.     While  still  at  the  university,  his  acquaintance  with  Eras- 
mus, who  had  already  commenced  his  splendid  career  as  the  champion 
of  liberal  culture,  gave  a  powerful  impulse  and  direction  to  his  mental 
development.     It  could  hardly  fail   that  while  drinking  with  Erasmus 
at  the  fountain  of  the  Muses — experiencing  in  himself  the  solid  bene* 
fits  and  the  exquisite  pleasures  of  communion  with  the  great  masters 
of   thought  and   style — young   More   should  come  to  look,  with  his 
friend's  eyes,  on  the  obstacles  then  opposed  to  the  progress  of  true 
learning,  in  the  character   and   influence  of  the  clergy.      He  became, 
heart  and  soul,  one  of  the  noble  corps  who,  with  Erasmus  at  its  head, 
broke  the  ranks  of  Obscurantism  in  the  sixteenth  century.     The  wea- 
pons of  his  leader,  those  light  arrows  feathered  with  wit,  but  tipped 
with  the  fatal  poison  for  the  darklings — truth — were  those  also  which 
More  excelled  in  handling.     Indeed,  in  the  opinion  of  Dean  Colet, 
he  was  the  only  real  wit  of  his  time  in  England  ;  and  he  used  his 
power  unsparingly  against  the  owls  and  bats  who  had  so  long  held 
undisturbed  reign  in  the  schools. 

The  friendship,  cemented  by  so  many  kindred  qualities,  grew  with 
years.  On  Erasmus'  second  visit  to  England,  enriched  with  wider 
knowledge,  and  laden  with  laurels,  More's  house  was  his  home  ;  and 
it  was  here  that  he  wrote  his  famous  satire  on  the  Monks — "  Moria, 
or  The  P raise  of  Folly."  In  15 15,  being  sent  by  the  King  on  a  com- 
mercial embassy  to  the  Netherlands,  Sir  Thomas  had  the  pleasure  of 
doing  his  friend  a  very  good  service  in  reference  to  this  book,  as  well 
as  in  another  respect,  of  still  more  importance  to  the  interests  of  relig- 
ion. Through  Erasmus,  whom  he  met  at  TSruges.  and  other  distin- 
guished literati  of  the  Low  Countries,  he  was  made  acquainted,  more 
fully  than  he  could  be  in  England,  witli  the  hostility  which  all  of  them 


THE    NEW    ANTAGONIST.  IO(J 

—  but  especially  Erasmus — had  to  encounter  from  the  enemies  of 
liberal  learning.  At  this  time  the  contest  raged  mainly  round  two 
points — his  Moria,  whose  biting  satire  had  deeply  wounded  the  self- 
love  of  the  lower  clergy,  against  whom  it  was  particularly  directed  ; 
and  his  projected  publication  of  the  Greek  New  Testament  from 
manuscripts,  with  a  new  Latin  translation. 

The  Theological  Faculty  of  the  University  of  Louvain,*  took  it 
upon  themselves,  in  a  special  manner,  to  frown  on  these  irreverent 
and  sacrilegious  proceedings  ;  even  decrying,  with  the  utmost  fury, 
the  study  of  the  Greek,  language,  as  not  only  useless,  but  in  the  highest 
degree  pernicious  to  theologians.  One  of  their  number,  Martin  Dor- 
pius  by  name,  a  respectable  Latin  scholar,  and  a  well-disposed  man — 
but  with  conservative  tendencies,  which  led  him  to  take  alarm  at 
everything  new — had  assailed  the  labors  of  Erasmus  in  a  published 
letter,  severely  censuring  the  Moria,  but,  above  all,  the  proposed 
New  Testament.  This,  as  an  innovation  tending  to  weaken  the 
authority  of  tradition,  he  deprecated  as  full  of  peril  to  the  interests  of 
religion.  The  temperate  reply  of  Erasmus  was  followed  by  another 
letter  from  Dorpius,  reiterating  his  previous  charges.  By  this  time 
Erasmus  was  at  Basle,  fully  occupied  with  printing  his  New  Testa- 
ment, and  More  felt  himself  called  on  to  take  up  the  pen  in  his  de- 
fence. He  addressed  a  letter  to  Dorpius,  in  which  he  vindicated  the 
propriety  of  thus  exposing  the  faults  of  the  clergy,  and  fully  justified 
the  efforts  of  his  friend  to  promote  the  study  of  the  Scriptures.  Dor- 
pms  had  said,  that  the  theologian  has  more  important  and  more  diffi- 
cult things  on  his  hands  than  the  explanation  of  the  Bible !  More 
wishes  him  joy,  that  a  book,  in  which  Jerome  and  Augustine  found 
so  much  which  was  difficult,  should  all  be  so  plain  and  easy  to  him  : 
yet  wonders  much  that  he  could  place  the  hair-splitting  questions, 
arbitrary  distinctions,  and  stupid  repetitions  of  Peter  Lombard's  Sen- 
tences, and  similar  works,  in  a  higher  rank  than  the  study  of  the 
Bible.  So  convincingly,  yet  in  so  kind  a  spirit,  did  he  combat  the 
alleged  necessity  and  obligation  of  adhering  to  the  Vulgate,  as  sole 
and  supreme  authority,  and  plead  for  a  thorough  knowledge  of  Greek, 
as  the  only  reliable  basis  of  New  Testament  interpretation,  that  Dor- 
pius was  wholly  brought  over  to  his  views.  He  immediately  devoted 
himself  with  such  ardor  to  the  study  of  Greek,  and  took  part  so  de- 
cidedly with  the  friends  of  liberal  learning,  that  his  colleagues  turned 
all  their  vengeance  on  him  as  an  apostate  from  their  ranks,  and  never 
rested  till  they  drove  him  from  the  Professor's  chair. 

*  Founded  in  1426  ;  in  the  16th  century  it  had  6000  students. 


IIO  ENGLISH    BIBLE    TRANSLATION. 

Two  years  after,  1517,  Sir  Thomas  More  surprised  the  literary 
world  by  his  philosophical  romance,  Utopia  ;  a  splendid  blossom  of 
genius  and  culture,  but  deriving  its  chief  interest  to  us  from  its  views 
of  various  matters  connected  with  religion,  especially  of  religious 
toleration  and  the  rights  of  conscience.  A  few  of  the  most  noticeable 
points  only  can  be  mentioned. 

The  citizens  of  The  Happy  Republic,  with  few  exceptions,  be- 
lieve in  an  infinite,  incomprehensible,  everywhere  present  Being, 
whom  they  call  Father  ;  but  from  this  centre  they  diverge  into  many 
varieties  of  religious  belief.  It  is  one  of  their  fundamental  laws  that 
"  each  jnan  can  live  according  to  his  own  religion,  and  that  no  violence  be 
used  to  convert  him  to  another  faith."  For  they  think  it  unseemly  and 
arrogant  to  attempt  to  force  on  all  what  one  may  happen  to  esteem 
as  true  ;  and  if  there  is  but  one  true  religion,  it  must,  in  due  time,  by 
the  aid  of  reason  and  gentleness  in  its  advocates,  win  the  victory  by 
its  own  inherent  power.  Christianity  found  easy  access  among  this 
people  ;  and  the  adherents  of  the  old  faith  neither  sought  to  deter 
any  from  becoming  its  converts,  or  persecuted  them  afterward.  Only 
when  a  new  proselyte  was  so  excessive  and  denunciatory  in  his  zeal  as 
to  endanger  the  public  peace,  he  was  exiled,  without  farther  punish- 
ment, from  Utopia.  Disbelievers  in  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  and 
in  a  future  state  of  rewards  and  punishments,  were  alone  disfran- 
chised on  account  of  their  opinions,  being  counted  as  brutes,  incapa- 
ble of  being  influenced  by  the  motives  necessary  to  constitute  a  useful 
or  safe  citizen.  Yet  even  these  were  not  punished  with  death,  nor 
terrified  by  threats  into  hypocrisy  ;  and  the  priests  and  fathers  of  the 
community  sought,  by  argument  and  reason,  to  cure  them  of  their 
folly. 

The  organization  of  the  priesthood  in  the  republic  furnishes  oppor- 
tunity for  many  significant  hints  at  abuses  in  the  Romish  Church. 
The  priests  of  Utopia  are  few  in  number,  only  thirteen  in  each  city  ; 
they  are  chosen  by  the  people  from  the  worthiest  in  the  land — of  the 
good,  the  best — and  that  there  may  be  no  constraint  in  the  matter,  by 
secret  vote.  Public  opinion  demands  of  them  the  greatest  sanctity  of 
character,  which,  however,  is  not  deemed  incompatible  with  mar- 
riage. They  conduct  the  public  worship  and  exercise  the  office  of 
censors  of  morals,  with  no  power,  however,  except  to  counsel  and 
admonish.  They  hold  no  civil  office.  In  case  of  war  a  deputation  of 
priests  accompanies  the  army,  their  business  being  to  pray — first,  for 
peace,  second,  for  a  bloodless  victory  to  their  countrymen.  They 
have  the  charge  of  education,  and  the  result  of  their  capacity  and 
fidelity  is  universal  intelligence  and  mental  activity.     The  youth  of 


THE    NEW    ANTAGONIST.  Ill 

Utopia  are  thoroughly  grounded  by  them,  first  in  good  morals  and 
religion,  then  in  the  principles  of  their  government,  in  music,  logic, 
mathematical  science,  astronomy,  and  in  the  Greek  language  and 
literature.      All  instruction  is  given  in  the  mother  tongue. 

A  recent  Catholic  biographer  of  Sir  Thomas  More,*  anxious  for  the 
consistency  of  this  great  champion  of  the  Church,  maintains  that  the 
Utopia  is  to  be  regarded  as  simply  a  work  of  pleasantry  and  fancy, 
not  intended  as  an  exposition  of  his  real  views,  either  on  government 
or  religion.  But  it  is  not  usual  to  write  even  a  work  of  fancy  for  the 
express  purpose  of  commending  principles  exactly  the  opposite  of 
those  which  the  author  approves  ;  especially  when  the  application  to 
the  circumstances  of  the  time  is  so  unavoidable  as  in  the  Utopia. 
Taken,  moreover,  in  connection  with  his  previous  relations,  no  room 
is  left  to  doubt  that,  at  this  period,  he  recognized  the  need  at  many 
points  of  c  vpform  in  the  existing  Church,  and  that  he  was  the  advo- 
cate of  universal  religious  toleration. 

Such  hc-i  been  the  general  character  and  course  of  this  distin- 
guished mat^  till  past  his  fortieth  year.f  On  what  grounds  he  could 
appear  as  the  antagonist  of  Tyndale,  why  he  did  not  rather  welcome 
the  honest  effc  *ts  of  the  reformer,  and  join  hand  in  hand  with  him  to 
promote  the  progress  of  intelligence  and  religion,  must  have  been  a 
matter  of  query  to  many  at  that  day.  But  however  that  was  to  be 
explained,  at  least  candor,  justice,  and  philosophic  liberality  in  the 
treatment  of  his  opponents,  might  be  confidently  expected  of  Sir 
Thomas  More. 

,     *  Rudhait,    Thomas  Moms,  Augsburg,  1852.     To  this  interesting  work  I  am 
indebted  for  the  materials  of  the  foregoing  chapter. 

\  The  year  of  his  birth  cannot  be  exactly  ascertained  ;  but  from  the  manner  in 
which  both  he  and  Tyndale  refer  to  his  age  in  their  controversy,  it  is  evident  that 
he  must  have  been  considerably  the  senior,  and  that  the  statement  in  the  text  is 
within  bounds. 


CHAPTER    XVII. 


THE    REFORMER    TRANSFORMED. 


There  are  many  examples  of  the  theoretical  reformer,  converted 
by  the  practical  experience  of  life  into  the  most  rigid  of  conservatives. 
Seldom,  indeed,  is  so  strange  a  transformation  witnessed,  as  that  now 
to  be  presented  in  the  case  of  Sir  Thomas  More.  But  his  own  writ- 
ings furnish  a  sufficient  solution  of  the  problem,  and  show  that  the 
process  was  perfectly  natural,  by  which  the  advocate  of  freedom  and 
progress  became  the  champion  of  a  Church  which  repudiates  progress, 
and  denies  even  the  right  to  think  ;  the  opposer  of  faithful  transla- 
tions of  the  Bible,  and  of  their  free  use  among  the  people  ;  and  the 
intolerant,  bloody  persecutor.  The  case  is  one  full  of  instruction  to 
those  in  every  age,  who  think  to  secure  the  peace  of  society,  and  the 
permanence  of  existing  institutions,  by  shutting  out  the  light  of  truth 
from  the  common  mind.  It  is  a  service  perilous  alike  to  principles 
and  to  reputation. 

During  the  eleven  years  which  had  elapsed  since  the  Utopia  saw 
the  light,  great  changes  had  been  witnessed  in  Europe,  which  threat- 
ened in  their  onward  progress  to  subvert  the  ancient  religious  institu- 
tions of  all  Christendom.  Before  15 17,  the  name  of  Luther  had 
scarcely  been  heard  of  out  of  Wittenberg.  Now,  some  of  the  most 
important  states  of  Europe  had  renounced  their  connection  with 
Rome  and  openly  embraced  his  doctrines  ;  nor  was  the  utmost  vigi- 
lance of  the  still  Catholic  governments  sufficient  to  exclude  4he  influ- 
ence. Under  the  name  of  Protestantism,  a  vast  religious  and 
political  organization,  full  of  youthful  energy  and  sustained  by  the 
convictions  of  the  people,  disputed  with  the  Papacy  for  the  control  of 
Christendom. 

It  cannot  be  doubted  that  Sir  Thomas  More  had  desired  reforms  in 
the  Church.  He  may  even  have  regretted  that  the  social  and  relig- 
ious system  of  Christendom  had  not  been  originally  constructed  on 
more  equitable  principles.  He  was  willing,  we  may  believe,  that 
various  faiths  should  be  tolerated,  under  strict  subordinacy  to  the 
state  religion.  But  a  Reformation  like  that  which  he  now  saw  sweep- 
ing over  Europe  and  invading  England  was  not  what  he  had  wished. 
Like  Erasmus,  he  was  terrified  at  the  storm  which  he  had   himself 


I  14  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

helped  to  raise,  and  would  fain  unsay  the  spell  and  exorcise  the 
unruly  elements  into  their  ancient  peace. 

To  this  was  added  another  consideration.  The  popular  agitations 
which  followed  the  establishment  of  Protestantism  in  Germany  were 
ascribed  by  Catholics,  no  doubt  by  many  very  sincerely,  to  the  influ- 
ence of  the  new  religion  ;  which,  by  removing  the  old  restraints,  and 
inculcating  freedom  of  conscience  and  freedom  of  thought  among  all 
classes,  had  implanted  in  the  lower  orders  the  spirit  of  misrule  and 
discontent,  to  end  in  tumult,  insurrection  and  revolution. 

It  was  under  the  lively  apprehension  of  similar  results  in  England, 
that  the  cautious  statesman  entered  the  lists  as  the  champion  of  the 
ancient  faith.  He  could  not,  or  would  not,  understand  that  Tyndale 
and  his  fellow  reformers  had  no  connection  with  Luther,  and  sought 
no  political  ends.  Nor  was  this,  in  truth,  a  matter  of  much  conse- 
quence. He  saw  in  their  fundamental  principles  causes  which  must 
work  out,  substantially,  the  same  effects,  and  which,  while  undermin- 
ing the  old  fabric  of  religion,  could  not  but  endanger  the  secular  gov- 
ernment with  which  it  was  so  vitally  connected.  He  fancied  Eng- 
land already  in  a  blaze  with  the  incendiary  fires  of  Lutherans,  lawless- 
ness and  riot  everywhere  in  the  ascendant,  and  all  the  goodly  frame- 
work of  society  which  it  had  taken  centuries  to  build  up,  involved  in 
general  ruin.  Much  in  the  existing  institutions  might  be  unjust  and 
oppressive,  but  no  settled  order  of  things  could,  in  his  view,  be  so 
bad  as  a  revolution. 

But  the  mainspring  of  his  zeal,  the  motive  which  furnished  its  most 
powerful  impulse,  and  dipped  his  pen  in  gall  and  wormwood,  is  to  be 
found  in  something  more  personal  to  himself,  namely,  in  his  own 
inward  religious  history.  The  distinguishing  doctrine  of  the  Refor- 
mation, justified  Hon  by  faith  alone,  was  the  object  of  his  deepest  aver- 
sion. W,ith  all  his  intelligence,  Sir  Thomas  More  could  not  rise 
above  the  belief  that  the  hair  shirt  which  he  wore  next  his  skin,  the 
frequent  fastings,  vigils,  and  flagellations  with  which  he  afflicted  his 
body,  were  offerings  acceptable  to  the  God  of  love.  The  strong 
religious  tendencies  which  early  in  life  had  inspired  the  wish  to 
become  a  monk,*  and  the  deep  conviction  of  his  own  infirmities 
which  had  led  him  to  relinquish  it  as  a  matter  of  conscience,  had  only 
strengthened  with  years.  To  stand  well  in  the  sight  of  God.  and,  as 
the  necessary  means  thereto,  to  train  his  sinful  nature  into  entire  sub- 
jection to  the  divine  law,  was  undoubtedly  the  first  object  of  his  life. 
But  the  unconscious  pride  which  led    him  to  reject  the  unbought 

*  Rudhart,  ch.  ix. 


THE   REFORMER   TRANSFORMED.  1  I  5 

righteousness  of  Christ  as  the  full  expiation  for  sin,  made  him  the 
bond  slave  of  superstition.  He  clung  to  the  Church  which  promised 
him  heaven  as  the  reward  for  his  deeds,  with  all  the  tenacity  of  the 
Pharisee  to  his  ancient  ritual.  The  faith  which  took  its  starting-point 
from  the  opposite  principle,  he  hated  with  an  intensity  proportioned 
to  the  violence  of  the  conflict  in  his  own  bosom.  A  more  striking 
parallel  to  the  early  history  of  Paul  can  scarcely  be  found,  than  is 
furnished  in  the  religious  career  of  this  great  man.  Both,  striving 
with  all  the  earnestness  of  high  and  powerful  natures,  to  win  heaven 
by  fulfilling  "  every  jot  and  tittle  of  the  law,"  became,  through  that 
very  aim,  the  bitterest  persecutors  of  those  who  brought  glad  tidings 
of  grace  and  truth  to  man.  Among  all  those  who  pursued,  to  prison 
and  to  death,  the  flock  of  Christ  in  England  in  the  16th  century,  Sir 
Thomas  More  must  be  allowed  the  first  place  in  cruel  and  unrelenting 
intolerance  ;  and  the  cause  is,  in  part  at  least,  that  in  him  as  in  Saul 
of  Tarsus,  a  nobler  character  was  perverted,  by  false  doctrine  and 
party  zeal,  into  a  tool  of  bigotry  and  despotism.  Certainly  it  would 
be  hard  to  find  a  more  lamentable  exhibition  of  their  corrupting  influ- 
ence than  this  controversy  with  Tyndale.  We  cannot  but  believe, 
many  times,  that  his  furious  exasperation  of  manner  is  due  as  much 
to  the  convictions  on  which  he  is  obliged  to  trample  as  to  a  sincere 
zeal  for  the  cause  he  advocates  ;  while  ever  and  anon,  in  the  midst 
of  serious  argument,  there  gleams  out  a  reckless,  mocking  spirit, 
between  profanity  and  jest,  which  makes  us  doubt  whether  he  has 
not,  in  the  process,  undermined  his  own  confidence  in  all  religion  ; 
and  if  his  faith  has  survived,  whether  he  has  not  lost  his  honesty. 
To  such  a  height  of  absurdity  does  he  sometimes  rise,  that  it  is 
impossible  not  to  feel  that  he  is  laughing  at  the  arguments  with  which 
he  is  seeking  to  convince  the  undiscerning  rabble.  Worse  than  all  is 
the  debased  moral  tone  of  these  writings,  the  ridiculous  tales,  inde- 
cent jests,  and  Billingsgate  abuse  which  deform  his  pages,  indicating 
far  more  the  design  to  win  the  people  to  his  party  by  catering  to  their 
degraded  tastes,  than  to  infuse  into  them  the  elevating  influences  of 
truth  and  virtue.  Well  did  he  deserve  the  rebuke  of  Tyndale,  who, 
in  his  reply  to  the  "  Dyaloge,"  makes  the  single  remark  on  one  chap- 
ter of  unmitigated  grossness  :  "  This  chapter  is  worthy  of  the  author 
and  of  his  worshipful  doctrine."  In  noble  contrast  stand  Tyndale's 
own  writings  for  the  people  ;  whose  pure,  honest,  earnest  pages  are 
sufficient  witness  that  their  author  sought  to  gain  his  readers  for  no 
party,  but  to  restore  the  reign  of  God.  the  dominion  of  holiness  and 
of  the  love  of  Christ  in  their  hearts. 

License  to  read  the  books  of  Tyndale,  for  the  purpose  of  refuting 


Il6  ENGLISH    BIBLE    TRANSLATION. 

them,  was  granted  to  Sir  Thomas  More  by  the  Bishop  of  London,* 
in  March,  1528  ;  but  the  first  division  of  his  work  did  not  appear  till 
the  summer  of  the  following  year,  though  he  had,  as  he  informs  the 
reader,  labored  at  it  "  night  and  day."  It  was  a  folio  of  two  hun- 
dred and  fifty  pages,  the  title  of  which  was  set  forth,  with  all  due 
pomp  and  circumstance,  as  follows  :  "A  Dyaloge  of  Syr  Thomas 
More,  Knyghte  :  One  of  the  Counsaill  of  our  Sovereign  Lord  the 
Kinge,  and  Chancelloure  of  his  Duchy  of  Lancaster.  Wherein  be 
treated  divers  matters,  as  of  the  veneracyon  and  worship  of  images 
and  reliques,  praying  to  sayntes  and  goyinge  on  pilgrimage.  Wyth 
many  other  thynges  touching  the  pestylente  secte  of  Luther  and  Tyn- 
dale,  by  the  tone  begun  in  Saxony,  and  by  the  tother  labored  to  be 
brought  into  England."  The  controversy  extended  through  the 
years  15 29-1533.  Sir  Thomas  More's  part  filled  several  folio  volumes. 
A  considerable  portion  of  it  appeared  under  the  imposing  name  of  the 
"  Chancelloure  of  England  ";  to  the  remainder  he  dedicated  the  year 
which  followed  his  resignation  of  the  Great  Seal.  Besides  the  works 
directed  against  Tyndale  by  name,  the  "  Supplication  of  Soules, "  in 
reply  to  Fyshe's  Supplication  of  Beggars  ;  the  "  Confutation  of  Frere 
Barnes'  Church,"  and  others  which  likewise  came  from  his  busy  pen 
during  this  period,  belong  to  the  same  general  subject,  and  together 
form  a  very  complete  view  of  the  doctrines  and  policy  of  the  Romish 
Church,  by  one  of  its  ablest  defenders. 

These  English  writings,  it  should  be  borne  in  mind,  were  for  the 
people,  and  were  intended  to  counteract  those  of  Tyndale  and  his  fel- 
low-reformers. What  then  was  the  process  by  which  the  end  was 
sought  ?  and  what,  if  successful,  must  have  been  the  influence  on  the 
condition  and  prospects  of  the  English  people  ? 

The  fundamental  principle  of  the  new  advocate,  with  which  his 
whole  theory  stood  or  fell,  was  the  infallibility  of  the  Church  of  Rome 
— The  most  holy  Catholic  Church  cannot  err.  How  is  this 
proved  ?  Primarily,  by  Scripture,  which,  in  this  point  is  supremo 
and  absolute  authority.  Christ  promised  Peter  that  his  faith  should 
not  fail.  But  Peter's  faith  did  fail  ;  therefore,  this  must  have  been 
addressed  to  him,  not  as  an  individual,  but  as  the  representative  Head 
of  the  Church  ;  ^ince  otherwise,  Christ  is  made  untrue  to  his  word. 
Likewise  to  all  his  Apostles,  as  the  representatives  of  the  Church,  he 
promised  that  the  Holy  Ghost  should  be  with  them  and  in  them  ; 
"  the  Comforter  shall  teach  you  all  things  ;"  "  he  that  heareth  you, 

*  What  a  picture  of  the  mental  bondage  in  which  England  was  then  held,  is 
disclosed  by  this  single  fact.  A  man  like  Sir  Thomas  More,  obliged  to  ask  leave 
of  the  bishop  to  read  the  works  <>(  Tyndale  ! 


THE   REFORMER   TRANSFORMED.  117 

heareth  me,  and  he  that  despiseth  you,  despiseth  me  ;  and  lo  !  I  am 
with  you  alway,  even  to  the  end  of  the  world."  And  Christ  also 
directed,  that  if  any  would  not  hear  the  Church,  he  should  be 
accounted  a  heathen  man  and  a  publican. — But  what  Church  is  this, 
and  how  is  it  to  be  known?  "It  is,"  says  More,  "the  common 
known  body  of  all  Christian  realms  remaining  in  the  faith  of  Christ, 
not  fallen  off,  nor  cut  off  with  heresies."  "  The  very  Church  of 
Christ  here  in  earth,  which  hath  the  right  faith,  and  which  we  be 
bounden  to  believe  and  obey,  is  this  universal  known  people  of  all 
Christian  nations,  that  be  neither  put  out,  nor  openly  departed  out, 
by  their  willful  schisms  and  plainly  professed  heresies."  "  The  Cath- 
olic Church  is  God's  perpetual  apostle,  however  nations  soever  fall 
therefrom,  and  how  little  and  small  soever  it  be  left."  "  I  said,  and 
yet  say,  that  these  words  of  our  Saviour  Christ,  '  Whoso  heareth 
you,  heareth  me,'  were  no  more  proper  commandment  to  bind  any 
man  to  believe  the  apostles,  than  to  believe  the  whole  Catholic 
Church,  and  general  councils  that  represent  that  whole  body  of  the 
Catholic  Church  ;  and  that  they  were  not  spoken  to  the  apostles  only, 
no  more  than  the  Holy  Ghost  was  promised  to  be  sent  to  the  apostles 
only."* — That  this  is  the  apostolic,  and  therefore  infallible  Church,  is 
proved  by  miracles  which  God  has  wrought  through  her,  from  the 
time  of  Christ  down  to  the  present.  "  And  this  is,  therefore,  the  way 
that  God  hath  taken  from  the  beginning  ;  that  is,  to  wit,  he  hath 
joined  his  word  with  wonderful  works,  to  make  his  word  perceived 
for  his  own.  Thus  did  he  in  every  age  before  the  coming  of  Christ. 
Thus  did  he  in  Christ  himself,  whose  words  he  proved  by  his  wonder- 
ful works.  .  .  .  Thus  did  he  also  by  his  blessed  apostles,  whose 
doctrines  he  confirmed  by  miracles.  And  thus  hath  he  done  ever 
since."f  "And  now,  in  such  things  as  God  seeth  most  need,  and 
the  hereticks  most  busy  to  assault,  there  doth  he  most  specially  fence1 

in  his  Church  with  miracles He  hath  wrought,  and  daily 

doth  many  wonderful  miracles,  and  the  like  of  those  that  he  wrought 
in  the  time  of  his  apostles,  to  show  and  make  proof  that  his  Catholic 
Church  is  his  perpetual  apostle,  how  many  nations  soever  fall  there- 
from, and  how  small  soever  it  be  left,  "J — "  Our  Saviour  saith  that  his 
own  miracles  passed  all  that  had  been  before,  and  that  yet  his  apostles 
and  disciples  and  faithful-believing  folk  should  do  as  great  and  greatef. 
And  we  see  in  the  Catholic  Church  God  hath  done,  and  daily  doth 
for  his  saints.  .  .  as  great  miracles  in  confirmation  of  our  faith  in 
that  behalf,  as  ever  he  did  in  the  time  of  the  apostles..    The  false. 

*  Confutation  of  Tyndale,  p.  504.  \  Ibid.  %  Ibkl;.,,p.  449.  ,. 


Il8  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

churches  of  heretics  do  no  miracle.  .  .  .  But  God  worketh  his 
miracles  in  his  true  Church,  to  shew  his  true  Church,  that  is  to  wit, 
his  true  apostle."* — The  genuineness  of  these  modern  miracles,  on 
which  so  much  is  made  to  depend,  is  argued  through  several  chapters 
of  the  Dialogue,  in  a  manner  which,  for  the  credit  of  the  distinguished 
author's  sincerity,  we  trust  was  more  satisfactory  to  him  than  it  is  to 
his  readers  at  the  present  day.  The  instances  which  he  adduces 
make  a  heavy  draught  on  our  faith  in  his  honesty.  One  of  these,  to 
which  he  professes  to  have  been  an  eye-witness,  must  suffice  as  a 
specimen. 

"  And  myself  saw,  at  the  Abbey  of  Barking,  beside  London,  to  my 
remembrance  about  thirty  years  past,  in  the  setting  an  old  image  in  a 
new  tabernacle,  the  back  of  which  image  being  painted  over,  and  of 
longtime  before  laid  with  beaten  gold,  happened  to  crack  in  one  place, 
and  out  there  fell  a  pretty  little  door,  at  which  fell  out,  also,  many 
relics,,  that  had  lien  unknown  in  that  image  God  wot  how  long.  And 
as  long  had  been  likely  to  be  again,  if  God  by  that  chance  had  not 
brought  them  to  light.  The  Bishop  of  London  then  came  thither  to 
see  there  were  no  deceit  therein.  And  I,  among  others,  was  present 
there  while  he  looked  thereon  and  examined  the  matter.  And  in  good 
faith,  it  was  a  marvel  to  me  to  behold  the  manner  of  it.  I  have  for- 
gotten much  thereof,  but  I  remember  a  little  piece  of  wood  there  was, 
rudely  shaped  in  cross,  with  thread  wrapped  about  it.  Writing  had  it 
none,  and  what  it  was  we  could  not  tell  ;  but  it  seemed  as  newly  cut  as 
if  it  had  been  done  within  one  day  before  !  And  divers  relics  had  old 
writings  on  them,  and  some  had  none.  But  among  other,  were  cer- 
tain small  kerchiefs  which  were  named  there  Our  Lady's,  and  of  her 
own  working.  Coarse  were  they  not,  nor  were  they  not  large,  but 
served  as  it  seemed,  to  cast  in  a  plain  and  simple  manner  on  her  head 
But  surely  they  were  as  clean  seams  to  my  seeming  as  ever  I  saw  in  my 
life,  and  were  therewith  as  white,  for  all  the  long  lying,  as  if  they  had 
been  washed  and  laid  up  within  one  hour  !  And  how  long  that  image 
had  stood  in  that  old  tabernacle,  that  could  no  man  tell  ;  but  there 
had,  in  all  the  church,  none  as  they  thought  stood  longer  untouched. 
And  they  guessed,  that  four  or  five  hundred  years  ago,  the  image  was 
hidden  when  the  abbey  was  burned  by  infidels,  and  those  relics  hidden 
therein  ;  afterward,  the  image  was  found  and  set  up  many  years  after, 
when  they  were  gone  that  hid  it.  And  so  the  relics  remained  un- 
known therein,  till  now  that  God  gave  that  chance  that  opened  it."f 

That  this  is  the  true  Church  is  attested  also  by  the  common  con-- 

*  Confutation,  p.  449.  f  Dialogue,  p.  192. 


THE   REFORMER   TRANSFORMED.  II9 

sent  of  the  "  old  holy  doctors,"  who,  having  proved  their  saintship 
by  indubitable  miracles,  testify  in  their  writings  that  this  is  the  very 
true  Church.  "  The  miracles  and  consent  of  these  holy  doctors,  do 
prove  that  this  must  needs  be  the  very  true  Church  in  which  they 
have  written,  and  their  miracles  have  been  done.  "^ 

The  essential  point  being  satisfactorily  established — that  the  Catho- 
lic Church  is  the  true  Church,  which  being  continually  pervaded  b$ 
the  fullness  of  divine  influence,  cannot  err — the  way  is  prepared  £©r- 
exahing  her  teachings  above  those  of  the  written  Word.  Provision  ia 
thus  made  for  all  those  doctrines  and  usages  in  the  Church,  which 
are  not  commanded  by  Scripture  ;  or  are,  by  all  ordinary  ruks  of  in- 
terpretation, even  in  direct  contrariety  to  it.  By  establishing  the 
authority  of  the  Church,  it  has  made  itself  superfluous.  The  unwrit- 
ten word — that  is,  the  traditions  taught  by  the  apostles,  and  handed 
down  from  age  to  age,  and  the  new  teachings  of  the  Church  itself  in 
successive  periods,  through  her  general  councils — are  of  equal 
authority  with  the  written  word.  Several  of  these  he  enumerates,  in 
a  passage  of  the  "  Confutation,"  as  follows  : 

"  By  these  traditions  have  we  the  praying  to  saints,  and  the  knowl- 
edge that  they  pray  for  us.  By  these  traditions  have  we  the  holy 
Lenten  fast.  ...  By  these  have  we  also  the  Saturday  changed 
into  Sunday.  ...  By  these  have  we  the  hallowing  of  chalices, 
vestments,  paschal  taper,  and  holy  water,  with  divers  other  things. 
By  these  traditions  of  that  Holy  Spirit,  hath  the  Church  also  the 
knowledge  how  to  consecrate,  how  to  say  Mass,  and  what  thing  to 
pray  for  and  to  desire  therein.  By  this  have  we  also  the  knowledge  to 
do  reverence  to  the  images  of  holy  saints,  and  of  our  Saviour,  and  to 
creep  to  his  cross,  and  to  do  divine  honor  unto  the  blessed  sacra- 
ment of  the  altar."  And  these  are  things  not  merely  true  in  them- 
selves ;  the  belief  of  them  is  necessary  to  salvation.  For  if  the 
Church,  in  teaching  the  worship  of  saints,  of  images,  relics,  and  the 
host,  teaches  what  is  false,  she  teaches  damnable  idolatry  ;  to  dis- 
believe it,  therefore,  if  true,  is  damnable  error  and  heresy.  To  judge 
from  the  earnestness  with  which  he  contends  for  these  "  unwritten 
verities,"  they  were  of  far  more  moment  in  his  eyes  than  those 
revealed  in  Scripture.  Such  frantic  zeal  in  defence  of  the  worship  of 
saints  and  relics  can  hardly  be  accounted  for  in  such  a  man,  except 
on  the  supposition  that  he  saw  in  these  the  stronghold  of  the  Church 
with  the  populace.  So  anxious  was  he  to  present  the  holy  fabric 
without  a  flaw  to  the  common  eye,  as  to  defend  the  superstition  of  pray- 
ing to  St.  Loy  for  sick  horses,  and  St.  Appoline  in  the  toothache,  and 
St.  Sythe  for  lost  keys  ;  and  of  the  offering  by  discontented  wives  of 


120  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

pecks  of  oats  to  St.  Wilgefort,  to  rid  them  of  their  husbands— hence, 
called  by  them  St.  Uncumber.  He  gravely  accounts  also  for  the 
fact,  that  the  head  of  John  the  Baptist  is  enshrined  in  more  than  one 
place,  and  in  general,  that  the  bones  of  the  saints  are  so  singularly 
multiplied  in  Christendom  ;  and  proves  that  under  the  inspired 
guardianship  of  the  Church  there  can  be  no  serious  mistake.  Nay, 
so  meritorious  and  so  necessary  is  the  reverence  of  relics,  that  if,  by 
chance,  a  pig's  bones  were  worshipped  as  those  of  a  saint,  the  service 
would  be  far  more  acceptable  to  God  than  the  profane  rejection  of 
the  whole  doctrine  by  heretics.* 

But  how  if  these  teachings  seem  to  contradict  the  plain  language 
of  the  Scriptures  ?  The  remedy  is  easy.  The  Church  which  cannot 
err  is  the  constituted  expounder  of  the  written  word.  "  She  has  the 
assistance  of  God  and  the  Holy  Ghost.  For  else  might  the  Church 
be  most  easily  beguiled  in  the  very  receiving  of  Scripture,  wherein 
they  take  outwardly  but  the  testimony  of  men  from  mouth  to  mouth, 
and  hand  to  hand,  without  other  examination.  But  that  secret  means 
that  inclineth  their  credulity  to  consent  in  the  believing  all  in  one 
point,  which  is  the  secret  instinct  of  God,  this  is  the  sure  mean  that 
never  can,  in  any  necessary  point,  fail  in  Christ's  Church."  "  Worst 
of  all  wretches  shall  he  walk,  who  cometh  to  the  Scripture  of  God  to 
try  whether  the  Church  believe  right  or  not.  For  either  doubteth  he 
whether  Christ  teach  his  Church  true,  or  whether  Christ  teacheth  it 
at  all  or  not.  And  then  he  doubteth  whether  Christ  in  his  words 
said  true,  when  he  said  he  would  be  with  his  Church  to  the  end  of 
the  world." 

He  particularly  cautions  theological  students  against  the  dangerous 
practice,  to  which  so  many  of  them  were  then  inclined,  of  "  giving 
themselves  to  the  study  of  Scripture  alone,  with  contempt  of  logic  and 
other  secular  sciences,  and  little  regard  to  the  old  interpreters"  ;  and 
tells  a  sad  story  of  some  who  had  thus  come  to  a  very  bad  end. 
"For  the  sure  avoiding  whereof,"  he  continues,  "  my  poor  advice 
were,  in  the  study  thereof,  to  have  a  special  regard  to  the  writings  and 
comments  of  the  old  holy  fathers.  And  yet,  or  he  fall  in  hand  with 
the  one  or  the  other,  next  to  grace  and  help  of  God  to  be  got  with 
abstinence  and  prayer  and  clean  living,  afore  all  things  were  it  neces- 
sary to  come  well  and  surely  instructed  in  all  such  points  and  articles 
as  the  Church  believeth."  "  Finally,  if  all  he  can  find  in  other  men's 
works,  or  invent  by  God's  aid  of  his  own  study,  cannot  suffice  to  sat- 
isfy, but  that  any  text  yet  seem  contrary  to  any  point  of  the  Church's 

*  Dialogue,  2d  Book. 


THE    REFORMER   TRANSFORMED.  121 

faith  and  belief,  let  him  then,  as  St.  Augustine  saith,  make  himself 
very  sure  that  there  is  some  fault,  either  in  the  translator  or  in  the 
writer  [copyist],  or  now-a-days  in  the  printer  ;  or  finally,  that  for 
some  let  or  other,  he  understandeth  it  not  aright.  And  so  let  him 
reverently  knowledge  his  ignorance,  lean  and  cleave  to  the  faith  of  the 
Church  as  an  undoubted  truth,  leaving  that  text  to  be  better  per- 
ceived when  it  shall  please  our  Lord,  with  his  light,  to  reveal  and 
disclose  it." 


CHAPTER   XVIII. 

SHALL    THE    PEOPLE    HAVE    THE    BIBLE  ? 

But  the  central  point  of  interest  in  this  controversy  was  the  subject 
of  vernacular  translations  of  the  Bible.     Of  these  the  Lord  Chancellor 
professed  himself  a  warm  advocate.     Nothing,  in  his  view,  could  so 
conduce  to  the  growth  of  piety  and  good  morals  among  the  people,  as 
the  Holy  Scriptures  faithfully  translated  into  their  mother  tongue. 
To  argue  against  this  was  to  reflect  on  "  the  holy  writers  that  wrote 
the  Scriptures  in  the  Hebrew  tongue,  and  against  the  blessed  evangel- 
ists that  wrote  the  Scripture  in  Greek,  and  against  all  those  in  like- 
wise that  translated  it  out  of  every  of  those  tongues  into  Latin"  ;  for 
these  were  all  written  in  what  was,  at  the  time,  the  vulgar  tongue. 
To  deny  it  to  the  unlearned  in  English,  required  also  that  it  should 
be  denied  in  the  Latin  to  the  laity  and  to  the  great  body  of  the  priest- 
hood also,  who  were  as  incompetent  to  understand  "  hard  and  doubt- 
ful texts''   in  the  vulgate,  as  the  very  women  to  do  so  in  their  own 
language.     Nor  did  the  objection  that  many  would  abuse  the  privi- 
lege to  their  own  destruction,  seem  to  him  a  sufficient  reason  for  with- 
holding it  from  all.     "  If  any  good  thing  will  go  forward,  somewhat," 
he  says,  "  must  be  adventured."     "  To  keep  the  whole  commodity 
from  any  whole  people,  because  of  harm  that  by  their  own  folly  and 
fault  may  come  to  some  part,  were  as  though  a  lewd  surgeon  would 
cut  off  the  leg  by  the  knee,  to  keep  the  toe  from  the  gout,  or  cut  off  a 
man's  head  by  the  shoulders  to  keep  him  from  the  toothache."     "  I 
would  not,  for  my  mind,  withhold  the  profit  that  any  one  good,  de- 
vout, unlearned  layman  might  take  by  the  reading,  not  for  the  harm 
that  an  hundred  heretics  would  fall  in  by  their  own  willful  abusion."1 
In  regard  to  the  principle  of  the  thing,  it  appears,  therefore,  that  Sir 
Thomas  was  entirely  one  with  the  reformers.     He  could  illustrate  it 
as  forcibly,  and  plead  for  it  as  earnestly,  as  the  most  zealous  of  them 
all.     The  only  difference  between  them  was  on  the  practical  appli- 
cation of  the  principle  in  which  he  and  they  alike  were  agreed. 

When  we  come  to  the  practical  application,  however,  this  difference 
is  found  to  be  a  somewhat  serious  matter,  involving  no  less  than  the 
whole  question  :  "  Shall  the  people  have  the  Bible  ?" 

*  Dialogue,  3d  Book. 


SHALL   THE   PEOPLE   HAVE   THE   BIBLE?  123 

In  the  first  place,  though  Sir  Thomas  More  was  fully  in  favor  ot  the 
Bible  for  the  people,  it  was  not  as  a  matter  of  necessity,  nor  as  their 
right.  Nor  did  he  plead  for  the  whole  Bible  to  be  given  to  the  whole 
people.  Who  should  receive  it,  and  how  much,  was  at  the  discretion 
of  their  spiritual  guides.  He  proposes  the  following  plan  for.  obviat- 
ing the  mischief  apprehended  by  many  learned  and  pious  prelates, 
from  the  Scriptures  in  the  mother  tongue.  "  Let  a  translation  be 
made  by  some  good  Catholic  and  well-learned  man,  or  by  divers 
dividing  the  labor  among  them,  and  the  work  then  allowed  and 
approved  by  the  ordinaries,  and  by  their  authority  put  to  print,  all 
the  copies  then  to  come  whole  into  the  bishop's  hands,  which  he  may 
after  his  discretion  and  wisdom  deliver  to  such  as  he  perceiveth  hon- 
est, sad,  and  virtuous,  with  a  good  monition  and  fatherly  counsel  to 
use  it  reverently,  with  humble  heart  and  lowly  mind,  rather  seeking 
therein  occasion  of  devotion  than  despicion.  And  providing  as  much 
as  may  be  that  the  book  be,  after  the  decease  of  the  party,  brought 
again  and  reverently  restored  unto  the  ordinary.  So  that,  as  near  as 
may  be  devised,  no  man  have  it  but  of  the  ordinaries'  hands,  and  by 
him  thought  and  reputed  for  such  as  shall  be  likely  to  use  it  for  God's 
glory  and  the  merit  of  his  own  soul.  Among  whom,  if  any  be  proved 
after  to  have  abused  it,  the  use  thereof  to  be  forbidden  him  either 
forever,  or  till  he  wax  wiser."  "  Though  it  were  not  taken  to  every 
lewd  lad  in  his  own  hands,  to  read  a  little  rudely  when  he  list,  and 
then  cast  the  book  at  his  heels,  or  among  other  such  as  himself  to 
keep  a  quodlibet  or  a  pot  parliament  upon,  I  trow  there  will  no  wise 
man  find  a  fault  therein."  "  Though  it  may,  therefore  [on  account 
of  the  presence  of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  the  Church],  be  the  better 
suffered  that  no  part  of  Scripture  were  kept  out  of  honest  laymen's 
hands,  yet  would  I  that  no  part  thereof  should  come  into  theirs, 
which,  to  their  own  harm,  and  haply  their  neighbor's  too,  would  han- 
dle it  over-homely,  and  be  too  bold  and  busy  therewith.  And 
although  Holy  Scripture  be  a  medicine  for  the  sick  and  food  for  him 
that  is  whole,  yet,  since  there  is  many  a  body  sore  and  soul-sick  that 
taketh  himself  for  whole,  and  in  Holy  Scripture  is  a  whole  feast  of  so 
much  divers  viand,  that  after  the  affection  and  state  of  sundry  stom- 
achs, one  may  take  harm  by  that  self  same  that  shall  do  another 
good,  and  sick  folk  often  have  such  a  corrupt  tallage  in  their  taste 
that  they  most  like  the  meat  that  is  most  unwholesome  for  them,  it 
were  not  therefore,  as  me  thinketh,  unreasonable  that  the  ordinary, 
whom  God  hath,  in  the  dioceses,  appointed  for  the  chief  physician  to 
discern  between  the  whole  and  the  sick,  and  between  disease  and  dis- 
ease, should  after  his  wisdom  and  discretion,  appoint  everybody  their 


124  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

part  as  he  should  perceive'  to  be  good  and  wholesome  for  them. 
And,  therefore,  as  he  should  not  fail  to  find  many  a  man  to  whom 
he  might  commit  all  the  whole  ;  so,  to  say  the  truth,  I  can  see  no 
harm  therein,  though  he  should  commit  unto  some  men  the  Gospel  of 
Matthew,  Mark,  or  Luke,  whom  he  should  yet  forbid  the  Gospel  of 
John  ;  and  suffer  some  to  read  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  whom  he 
would  not  suffer  to  meddle  with  the  Apocalypse.  Many  were  there, 
I  think,  should  take  much  profit  by  St.  Paul's  Epistle  ad  Ep/iesios,  and 
yet  should  find  little  fruit  for  their  understanding  in  the  Epistle  ad  Rom- 
anes. And  in  likewise  would  it  be  in  divers  other  parts  of  the  Bible  as 
well  in  the  Old  Testament  as  in  the  New  ;  so  that  I  say,  though  the 
bishop  might,  unto  some  laymen,  betake  and  commit,  with  good 
advice  and  instruction,  the  whole  Bible  to  read  ;  yet  might  he  to 
some  man  well  and  with  reason  restrain  the  reading  of  some  part,  and 
from  some  busy-body  the  meddling  with  any  part  at  all,  more  than 
he  shall  hear  in  sermons  set  out  and  declared  unto  him  ;  and  in  like- 
wise to  take  away  the  Bible  from  such  folk  again  as  be  proved  by  their 
blind  presumption  to  abuse  the  occasion  of  their  profit  unto  their  own 
hurt  and  harm." 

At  the  conclusion  he  modestly  suggests,  with  all  deference  to  more 
wise  and  learned  judges,  that  he  would  not  himself  fear  to  try  the 
experiment  of  permitting  the  Scriptures  to  go  freely  among  the  peo- 
ple. But  as  the  controversy  progressed,  not  so  much  to  his  own 
credit  as  had  been  anticipated,  he  seems  to  have  grown  much  more 
dubious  on  this  point.  In  the  "  Confutation,"  written  two  or  three 
years  later,  1532,  he  argues  against  having  the  church  service  in  Eng- 
lish, "  which,"  he  says,  "  what  it  would  do  here  God  knoweth  !  But 
as  for  Allmain  (Germany),  there  as  it  is  so  already  we  see  well 
enough  that  it  doeth  no  great  good  there."  In  the  "  Apology,"  writ- 
ten in  1533,  he  seems  quite  weaned  from  the  plan  which  had  once  been 
so  near  his  heart.  "  The  people,"  he  asserts,  "  may  have  every 
necessary  truth  of  Scripture,  and  everything  necessary  for  them  to 
know  concerning  the  salvation  of  their  souls,  truly  taught  and 
preached  unto  them  ;  though  the  corps  and  body  of  the  Scripture  be 
not  translated  unto  them  in  their  mother  tongue.  For  else  had  it 
been  wrong  with  English  people,  from  the  faith  first  brought  into  this 
realm  unto  our  own  day,  in  all  which  time  before,  I  am  sure  that 
every  English  man  and  woman  that  could  read  it,  had  not  a  book  by 
them  of  the  Scripture  in  English.  And  yet  is  there,  I  doubt  not,  of 
those  folk  many  a  good  soul  saved.  And  secondly,  also,  if  the  having 
of  the  Scripture  in  English  be  a  thing  so  requisite,  of  precise  neces- 
sity, that  the  people's  souls  should  needs  perish  but  if  they  have  it 


SHALL   THE   PEOPLE   HAVE   THE   BIBLE?  12$ 

translated  into  their  own  tongue  ;  then  must  the  most  part  perish  for 
all  that,  except  the  preacher  make  farther  provision  beside,  that  all 
the  people  shall  be  able  to  read  it  when  they  have  it,  of  which  people 
far  more  than  four  parts  of  all  the  whole  divided  into  ten  could  never 
read  English  yet,  and  many  now  too  old  to  begin  to  go  to  school,  and 
shall,  with  God's  grace,  though  they  read  never  word  of  Scripture, 

come   to  heaven   as   well Many  have  thought  it   a 

thing  very  good  and  profitable  that  the  Scripture,  well  and  truly 
translated,  should  be  in  the  English  tongue.  And  albeit  that  many 
right  wise  and  well  learned  both,  and  very  virtuous  folk  also,  both 
have  been  and  yet  are  in  a  far  other  mind  ;  yet  for  mine  own  part,  I 
both  have  been,  and  yet  am  also  of  the  same  opinion  still,  as  I  have 
in  my  Dialogue  declared,  if  the  men  were  amended  and  the  time  meet 
therefor  /" 

In  the  second  place,  there  seemed  to  be  insuperable  difficulties  in 
the  way  of  obtaining  such  a  translation  as  might  safely  be  trusted  in 
the  people's  hands.  There  was  a  tradition  of  an  ancient  orthodox 
version  made  known  before  Wickliffe's  ;*  but  where  to  find  it,  or  how 
to  distinguish  it  from  that  seditious  and  prohibited  translation,  no 
man  could  tell.  When  moreover,  the  pious  Chancellor  reflects,  that 
all  through  these  two  hundred  years,  during  which  the  holy  Catholic 
Church  has  possessed  so  many  learned  and  virtuous  doctors,  not  one 

*  In  reference  to  this  alleged  version,  Tyndale  replies  :  "  What  may  not  Mr. 
More  say  by  authority  of  his  poetry  ?  There  is  a  lawful  translation  that  no  man 
knovveth,  which  is  as  much  as  no  lawful  translation.  Why  might  not  the 
bishops  show  which  were  that  lawful  translation,  and  let  it  be  printed  ?  Nay 
if  that  might  have  been  obiained  of  them  with  large  money,  it  had  been  printed, 
ye  may  be  sure,  long  ere  this.  But.  Sir,  answer  me  hereunto  ;  how  happeneth 
that  ye  defenders  translate  not  one  yourselves  to  cease  the  murmur  of  the  peo- 
ple, and  put  to  your  own  glosses,  to  prevent  heretics  ?  You  would  no  doubt 
have  done  it,  long  since,  if  ye  could  have  made  your  glosses  agree  with  the  text 
in  every  place."  He  adds  a  serious  charge  against  Sir  Thomas  More's  sin- 
cerity. "  And  what  can  you  say  to  this,  how  that  besides  they  have  done  their 
best  to  disannul  all  translating  by  parliament,  they  have  disputed  before  the  kings' 
grace  that  it  is  perilous  and  not  meet,  and  so  concluded  that  it  shall  not  be,  under 
a  pretence  of  deferring  it  for  certain  years  ;  where  Mr.  More  was  their  special 
orator,  to  feign  lies  for  their  purpose."  Ans.  to  Sir  Thomas  More's  Dialogue, 
vol.  ii.,  p.  175.  This  is,  without  doubt,  the*  interview  mentioned  by  More  him- 
self (Confutation,  p.  422)  :  "  The  king's  highness,  and  not  without  the  counsel 
and  advice,  not  of  his  nobles  only  with  other  counsellors  attending  on  his  grace's 
person,  [most  of  them  ecclesiastics,]  but  also  of  right  virtuous  and  special  right 
well  learned  men  of  either  university,  and  other  parties  of  the  realm  specially 
called  thereunto,  hath,  after  diligent  and  long  consideration  had  therein,  been 
fain,  for  the  while,  to  prohibit  the  Scripture  of  God  to  be  suffered  in  English 
tongue  among  the  people's  hands." 


126  ENGLISH   BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

of  them  has  been  moved  by  the  Holy  Spirit  to  undertake  this  work, 
he  begins  to  be  in  doubt  whether  the  wishes  he  has  indulged  are  in 
harmony  with  the  will  of  God.  Heretics,  alone,  seemed  to  have 
their  minds  inclined  to  Bible  translation.  A  New  Testament,  trans- 
lated out  of  the  original  Greek  into  clear  and  vigorous  English,  had 
already  appeared,  and  had  commended  itself  widely  to  the  popular 
mind.  It  was  the  first  effort  of  the  kind  by  an  English  scholar  ;  and, 
as  a  literary  work,  might  well  have  been  an  object  of  pride  to  English 
scholars.  But,  as  the  work  of  a  heretic  it  must  be  prohibited,  and 
wherever  found,  burned  to  ashes  by  the  faithful  guardians  of  the 
flock.  Better  far  that  the  people  should  never  have  a  Bible,  than 
receive  it  from  this  poisoned  source  ! 

But,  unfortunately,  the  notion  had  gone  abroad  among  the  people 
that  these  measures  were  attributable  rather  to  personal  and  selfish 
considerations,  than  to  any  concern  for  their  welfare. 

"  The  visible  contrariety  between  that  book  and  the  doctrines  of 
those  who  handled  it,"  was  the  popular  solution  of  their  zeal  for  its 
suppression  ;  an  opinion  which  did  not  tend  to  lessen  their  eagerness 
to  read  it,  or  their  prejudices  against  the  clergy.  To  counteract  this 
impression,  and  to  persuade  the  people  to  wait  patiently  till  Provi- 
dence should  send  them  a  Bible,  prepared  by  the  right  men  on  the 
right  principles,  More  put  forth  all  the  power  of  his  pen. 

He  begins  *  with  expressing  his  surprise,  "  that  any  good  Christian 
man  having  any  drop  of  wit  in  his  head,"  should  complain  of  the 
burning  of  Tyndale's  New  Testament.  Even  to  call  it  the  New  Tes- 
tament is  a  misnomer  ;  since,  as  he  affirms,  "  Tyndale  had,  after 
Luther's  counsel,  so  corrupted  and  changed  it  from  the  good  and 
wholesome  doctrine  of  Christ,  to  the  devilish  heresies  of  their  own, 
that  it  was  clean  a  contrary  thing."  "  To  tell  all  its  faults,  were  in 
a  manner  to  rehearse  all  the  whole  book,  wherein  there  were  found 
and  noted  wrong  above  a  thousand  texts  by  tale.  To  study  to  find 
one,  were  to  study  where  to  find  water  in  the  sea." 

But  when  he  condescends  to  specify  some  of  these  alleged  errors, 
we  see  that  the  real  gist  of  the  difficulty  lies  within  a  nutshell.  It 
was  Tyndale's  principles  of translation,  as  applied  to  certain  ecclesiastical 
terms  of  the  Romish  Church,  which  formed  the  true  ground  of  his  con- 
demnation with  the  Lord  Chancellor.  Out  of  the  multitude  of  mis- 
translations, he  proposes  to  mention  "  two  or  three,  such  as  every  one 
of  the  three  is  more  than  thrice  three  in  one."  "  The  one  is  this 
word,  Priests  ;   the  other,  the  Church;  the  third,    Charity" — trans- 

*  Dialogue,  3d  Book,  8th  chap. 


SHALL   THE   PEOPLE    HAVE   THE   BIBLE?  1 27 

lated  by  Tyndale,  seniors  (afterward  changed  to  elders),  congregation, 
love.  To  these  he  afterward  adds  several  others — as  favor  for  grace  ; 
repentance  for  penance ;  knowledging*  for  confessing.  This  may,  at 
first,  seem  mere  peevish  caviling  on  the  part  of  More  ;  as  Coverdale 
said,  "  like  a  quarrel  as  to  the  difference  between  fourpence  and  a 
groat."  But  this  is  a  mistaken  view.  These  terms  were  the  very 
pillars  of  the  hierarchical  system.  In  excluding  them  from  his*trans- 
lation,  Tyndale  had  effaced  from  the  English  New  Testament  every- 
thing to  which  the  Romish  clergy  could  appeal,  in  proof  of  those  pre- 
rogatives by  which  they  had  so  long  lorded  it  over  the  minds  and  con- 
sciences of  the  laity.  The  controversy  beteen  More  and  Tyndale,  on 
these  points,  shows  clearly  that  they  both  considered  them  vital  ques- 
tions. The  Lord  Chancellor  accuses  his  opponent,  over  and  over,  of 
"  going  about  by  this  means  to  make  a  change  in  the  faith."  "  Be- 
cause," says  he,f  "  that  Luther  utterly  denieth  the  very  Catholic 
Church  in  earth,  and  saith  that  the  Church  of  Christ  is  but  an 
unknown  congregation  of  some  folk,  here  two  and  there  three,  no 
man  wot  where,  having  the  right  faith,  which  he  calleth  only  his  own 
new  forged  faith  ;  therefore  Huchyns  [Tyndale]  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment, cannot  abide  the  name  of  the  Church,  but  turneth  it  into  the 
name  of  congregation  ;  willing  that  it  should  seem  to  Englishmen, 
either  that  Christ,  in  the  Gospel,  had  never  spoken  of  the  Church,  or 
else  that  the  Church  were  but  such  a  congregation,  as  they  might  have 
occasion  to  say  that  a  congregation  of  some  such  heretics  were  the 
Church  that  God  spake  of. — Now,  as  touching  the  cause  why  he 
changed  the  name  of  priest  into  senior,  ye  must  understand  that 
Luther  and  his  adherents  hold  this  heresy,  that  holy  order  is  nothing. \ 

*  This  word,  as  appears  from  many  passages  in  More's  own  writings,  had  the 
full  force  of  our  present  form,  acknowledging. 

t  Dyaloge,  p.  222. 

%  How  much  importance  More  attached  to  this  point,  is  seen  from  other  pas- 
sages, in  which  he  speaks  of  the  nature  and  efficacy  of  the  priestly  office.  "  But 
Tyndale  careth  not  how  he  set  his  words,  so  that  he  may  make  us  to  believe 
that  we  need  no  priest  to  offer  up  daily  the  same  sacrifice  that  our  Saviour  offered 
once,  and  hath  ordained  to  be  by  priests  perpetually  offered  in  his  Church." 
"  Nor  would  Tyndale  have  us  for  his  pleasure,  in  hatred  of  the  order  of  priest- 
hood, believe  that  the  priest  doth  at  the  Mass  make  none  offering  of  that  holy 
sacrifice  for  sin.  With  which  heresy  he  clean  taketh  away  the  very  fruit  of  the 
Mass,  in  which  that  blessed  sacrament  is  most  honored  of  the  people,  and  is  also 
most  profitable  unto  the  people." — Ans.  to  Tynd.  Preface,  p.  392.  "  And  be  a 
priest  never  so  nought,  .  .  .  yet  this  advantage  take  we  by  the  privilege  and 
prerogative  of  his  priesthood,  .  .  .  that  be  he  never  so  vicious,  and  therewith  so 
impenitent,  and  so  far  from  all  purpose  of  amendment,  that  his  prayers  were 
afore  the  face  of  God  rejected  and  abhorred,  yet  that  sacred  sacrifice  and  sweet 


128  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

And  that  a  priest  is  nothing  else  but  a  man  chosen  among  the  people 
to  preach  ;  and  by  that  choice  to  that  office,  he  is  priest  by  and  by, 
without  any  more  ado.  .  .  .  But  as  for  saying  Mass,  and  hearing 
of  confession,  and  absolution  thereon  to  be  given  ;  all  this,  he  saith, 
that  every  man,  woman,  and  child  may  do  as  well  as  any  priest." 
"  Ye  may  perceive  that  he  thus  used  himself  in  his  translation,  to  the 
intent'that  he  would  set  forth  Luther's  heresies  and  his  own  thereby. 
For  first,  he  would  make  the  people  believe  that  we  should  believe 
nothing  but  plain  Scripture,  in  which  point  he  teacheth  a  plain,  pesti- 
lent heresy.  And  then  would  he,  with  his  false  translation,  make  the 
people  ween  farther,  that  such  articles  of  our  faith  as  he  laboreth  to 
destroy,  and  which  be  well  proved  by  Holy  Scripture,  were  in  Holy 
Scripture  nothing  spoken  of  ;  but  that  the  preachers  have,  all  this  fif- 
teen hundred  year,  misreported  the  Gospel,  and  Englished  the  Scrip- 
ture wrong,  to  lead  the  people  purposely  out  of  the  right  way." 

Nor  does  Tyndale,  in  his  reply  to  More,  treat  the  mooted  render- 
ings as  a  matter  of  indifference.  "  Wherefore,"  he  says,*  "  inas- 
much as  the  clergy  (as  the  nature  of  those  hard  and  indurate  adamant 
stones  is  to  draw  all  to  them),  had  appropriated  unto  themselves  the 
term  that  of  right  is  common  to  all  the  whole  congregation  of  them 
that  believe  in   Christ,  f   and   with   their  false  and  subtle  wiles,  had 

oblation  of  Christ's  holy  body,  offered  up  by  his  office,  can  take  none  impairing 
by  the  filth  of  his  sin,  but  highly  helpeth  to  the  upholding  of  this  wretched  world, 
from  the  vengeance  and  wrath  of  God,  and  is  to  God  acceptable,  and  to  us  as 
available  for  the  thing  itself,  as  if  it  were  offered  by  a  better  man." — Dialogue,  p. 
226.  And  what  is  the  sacrifice  which  the  priest  first  creates,  and  then  offers  ? 
Let  More  himself  answer.  It  is  "  that  holy,  blessed,  glorious  flesh  and  blood  of 
Almighty  God  himself,  with  his  celestial  soul  therein,  and  with  the  majesty  of  his 
eternal  godhead." — Treatise  on  the  Passion,  p.  1264.  "  It  is  under  the  form  and 
likeness  of  bread,  the  very  self-same  body  3nd  the  very  self-same  blood,  that  died 
and  was  shed  upon  the  cross  for  our  sin,  and  the  third  day  gloriously  did  rise 
again  to  life,  and  with  the  souls  of  holy  saints  fetched  out  of  hell,  ascended  and 
styed  [rose]  up  wonderfully  into  heaven,  and  there  sitteth  on  the  right  hand  of  the 
Father,  and  shall  visibly  descend  in  great  glory  to  judge  the  quick  and  the  dead, 
and  reward  all  men  after  to  their  works." — lb.  1266. 

It  was  no  false  charge  that  Tyndale,  in  refusing  to  recognize  this  office  in  the 
English  Testament,  "  went  about  to  make  a  change  in  the  [Romish]  faith." 

*  Tyndale's  Works,  vol.  ii.,  p.  14. 

f  More  foolishly  cavils  at  this  assertion  of  Tyndale,  as  if  he  had  said  that  the 
laity  were  in  no  sense  included  in  the  Romish  church.  But  he  does  not  attempt 
to  deny  or  evade,  so  patent  was  the  fact,  that  whenever  The  Church  was  spoken 
of  with  the  idea  of  power  and  authority,  the  clergy  alone  were  included.  When 
the  Church  was  said  to  have  decided  on  a  doctrine,  or  a  course  of  policy,  or  to 
have  performed  any  high  judicial  act,  it  was  understood  of  them  alone  ;  the  laity 
having  no  voice  in  spiritual  matters.     Through  their  courts,  synods,  and  general 


SHALL  THE  PEOPLE  HAVE  THE  BIBLE?        1 29 

beguiled  and  mocked  the  people,  and  brought  them  into  ignorance  of 
the  word  ;  making  them  understand  by  the  word  Church,  nothing  but 
the  shaven  flock  of  them  that  shore  the  whole  world  ;  therefore,  in 
the  translation  of  the  New  Testament,  where  I  found  this  word,  eccle- 
sia, I  interpreted  it  by  this  word,  congregation."  "  And  that  I  use 
this  word,  knowledge,  and  not  confession ;  and  this  word,  repentance, 
and  not  penance.  In  which  all,  he  cannot  prove  that  I  gave  not  the 
right  English  unto  the  Greek  word.  But  it  is  a  far  other  thing  that 
paineth  them,  and  biteth  them  by  the  breasts.  There  be  secret 
pangs  that  pinch  the  very  hearts  of  them,  whereof  they  dare  not  com- 
plain. The  sickness  that  maketh  them  so  impatient  is,  that  they  have 
lost  their  juggling  terms."*  "  So  now  the  causes  why  our  prelates 
thus  rage,  and  that  moveth  them  to  call  Mr.  More  to  help  is,  not 
that  they  find  just  causes  in  the  translation,  but  because  they  have  lost 
their  juggling  and  feigned  terms,  wherewith  Peter  prophesied  they 
should  make  merchandise  of  the  people,  "f 

Now  Sir  Thomas  More  did  not  pretend  that  Tyndale's  translation 
misrepresented,  in  these  points,  the  original  meaning  of  the  words 
used  in  the  Greek  text.  His  position  was  this  :  The  sacred  writers 
did  indeed,  of  necessity,  use  for  the  expression  of  Christian  ideas, 
words  taken  from  common  life  ;  but  they  used  them  in  a  peculiar 
sense.  Thus  the  Greek  word  presbyteros  (translated  by  Tyndale 
senior,  or  elder),  meant  nothing  more  than  this,  until  it  was  employed 
to  designate  an  office  in  the  Christian  Church,  to  which  were  attached 
certain  mystical  functions  and  prerogatives.  This  mystical  Christian 
idea  is  expressed  in  English  by  the  word  Priest  ;  and  to  substitute 
for  it  the  literal  rendering,  senior  or  elder,  while  it  is  true  to  the 
words  of  Scripture,  falsifies  its  sense.  So  ecclesia,  which  meant  noth- 
ing, originally,  but  a  congregation  or  assembly,  of  whatever  kind,  as 
by  them  applied  to  that  mystical  body  of  Christ,  wherein  he  perpetually 
resides  by  his  Spirit,  and  which  is  represented  in  English  by  the  con- 
secrated word,  Church.  To  translate  ecclesia  by  the  secular  word, 
congregation,  is  therefore,  to  lose  the  inspired  meaning. 

There  is  certainly  something  plausible  in  this  view  at  first  sight  ; 
but  it  will  not  bear  the  touchstone  of  the  foundation-principle  of  Pro- 
testantism   for  a  single  moment.     Who  was  to  settle  the  mystical 

councils — subject  only  to  the  Pope — they  could  at  pleasure  alter  or  abolish 
the  laws  of  Christ,  and  institute  (on  pain  of  excommunication,  chains  and  the 
stake),  new  articles  of  faith  for  the  whole  body.  And  this,  by  virtue  of  the 
authority  delegated  to  St.  Peter  and  his  successors,  was  the  voice  of  The 
Church. 

*  Tyndale's  Works,  vol.  Li.,  p.  22.  t  Ibid»  P-  24- 


130  ENGLISH   BIBLE  TRANSLATION. 

Christian  sense  of  the  words  used  by  the  sacred  writers  ?  Sir 
Thomas  had  a  ready  answer,  The  Holy  Catholic  Church,  which  can- 
not err.  Once  admit  that  first  great  tenet,  which  he  had  so  labored 
to  establish,  and  all  his  inferences  followed  with  the  force  of  logical 
demonstration.  Admit  that,  and  it  was  proved  without  farther 
trouble,  that  a  vernacular  Bible  should  conform,  in  the  principles  of 
its  translation,  to  whatever  sense  the  Church,  by  its  doctrines  and 
usages,  should  have  put  upon  the  words  of  inspiration. 

But  Tyndale  had  an  altogether  different  notion  of  the  office  of  a 
translator  of  the  Scriptures.  No  man,  and  no  body  of  men,  might 
stand  between  him  and  the  Sacred  Oracles,  of  which  he  had  under- 
taken to  give  a  faithful  reflection  to  his  countrymen.  "  I  call  God  to 
record," — such  is  his  solemn  appeal  to  the  Searcher  of  hearts, — 
"  against  the  day  we  shall  appear  before  the  Lord  Jesus,  to  give  a 
reckoning  of  our  doings,  that  1  never  altered  one  syllable  of  God's 
word  against  my  conscience,  nor  would  this  day  if  all  that  is  in  the 
earth,  whether  it  be  pleasure,  honor,  or  riches,  might  be  given  me." 
Having  diligently  labored  to  ascertain  the  exact  meaning  of  the  sacred 
original,  as  it  spoke  to  those  whom  it  first  addressed,  it  was  his  single 
aim  to  reproduce  it  in  those  words  of  his  mother  tongue  which 
would  give  that  meaning  to  the  minds  of  his  countrymen.  He  asked 
not  whether  the  word  were  holy  or  profane.  Any  word  was  holy  to 
him  which  conveyed  truly  and  clearly  the  mind  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 
Sir  Thomas  More  would  have  welcomed,  at  least  so  he  professed,  a 
vernacular  Bible,  if  so  translated  as  not  to  put  in  question  with  the 
common  people  the  faith  and  practice  of  his  Church.  This  hf 
deemed  a  greater  evil  than  to  deprive  them  of  the  Scriptures.  Tyn- 
dale believed  that,  whatever  became  of  that  Church  or  any  other, 
God  had  a  right  to  speak  directly  to  the  common  people,  and  that  the 
people  had  a  right  to  hear  him.  It  was  this  belief,  and  his  honest, 
manly,  Christian  adherence  to  it,  unmoved  by  fear  or  favor,  which 
constituted  him  God's  special  messenger  to  his  age,  to  break  the  iron 
rule  of  priestcraft,  and  to  usher  in  a  new  epoch  of  soul-liberty  and 
pure  religion. 

The  persecuting  spirit  of  the  anti-Bible  principle  is  well  illustrated 
in  that  of  its  great  champion.  It  being  right  to  forbid  the  Scriptures 
to  the  people,  it  was  right  also  to  use  all  such  means  as  might  be 
necessary  to  prevent  their  obtaining  them.  It  being  right  to  keep  the 
Scriptures  out  of  their  reach  by  laws  temporal  and  spiritual,  it  was 
right,  also,  to  affix  such  penalties  to  these  laws  as  would  insure  obedi- 
ence. It  is  really  appalling,  as  one  turns  over  these  long  folios, 
betokening  the  author's  unwearied  interest  in  his  theme,  to  remark 


SHALL   THE   PEOPLE   HAVE   THE   BIBLE?  131 

how,  from  beginning  to  end,  they  hiss  and  sparkle  with  the  fires  of 
remorseless  zealotism.  The  captions  to  a  few  chapters  of  the 
"  Dyalogue"  indicate  his  position  in  regard  to  the  treatment  of  those 
who,  in  this  great  matter,  ventured  to  recognize  a  higher  law  than 
that  of  King  Henry,  ot  the  Romish  Bishops.  Chapter  thirteenth  is 
headed  thus  :  "  The  author  showeth  his  opinion  concerning  the  burn- 
ing of  heretics,  and  that  it  is  lawful,  necessary  and  well  done  ;  and 
showeth  also  that  the  clergy  doth  not  procure  it,  but  only  the  good 
and  politic  provision  of  the  temporality."*  Chapter  fourteenth  : 
"The  author  somewhat  showeth  that  the  clergy  doth  no  wrong  in 
leaving  heretics  to  secular  hands,  though  their  death  follow  thereon." 
Chapter  fifteenth  :  "  That  princes  be  bound  to  punish  heretics,  and 
that  fair  handling  helpeth  but  little  with  many  of  them."  Chapter 
eighteenth  :  "  The  author  showeth  that  in  the  condemnation  of  heret- 
ics the  clergy  might  lawfully  do  much  more  sharply  than  they  do  ; 
and  that,  in  deed  and  clearness,  doth  no  more  now  against  heretics 
than  the  apostle  counselieth,  and  the  old  holy  doctors  did."  Under 
the  latter  heading  he  instances  the  case  mentioned  in  the  Epistle  to 
the  Corinthians,  of  Hymeneus  and  Alexander,  whom  Paul  had  "  de- 
livered unto  Satan  that  they  might  learn  not  to  blaspheme."  "In 
which  words,"  says  More,  "we  may  learn  that  St.  Paul,  as  apostle 
and  spiritual  governor  in  that  country,  finding  them  twain  fallen  from 
the  faith  of  Christ,  ....  did  cause  the  devil  to  torment  and 
punish  their  bodies,  which  every  man  may  well  wit  was  no  small  pain, 
and,  peradventure,  not  without 'death  also.  .  .  And  this  bodily 
punishment  did  St.  Paul,  as  it  appeareth,  upon  heretics  ;  so  if  the 
clergy  did  unto  much  more  blasphemous  heretics  much  more  sorrow 
than  St.  Paul  did  to  them,  they  should  neither  do  it  without  good 
cause,  nor  without  great  authority  and  evident  example  of  Christ's 
blessed  apostles.     And  surely  when  our  Saviour  himself  called  such 

heretics  wolves  in  sheep's    eloth'ng, the  prelates  of 

Christ's  Church  rather  ought  temporally  to  destroy  those  ravenous 
wolves,  than  suffer  them  to  worry  and  devour  everlastingly  the  flock 
that  Christ  hath   committed   unto   their   care."      He  praises  also  the 

*  This  dishonest  evasion  was  unworthy  of  Sir  Thomas  More.  "  As  though," 
says  Tyndale,  in  his  answer,  (vol.  ii.,  p.  222),  "  the  Pope  had  not  first  found  the 
law,  and  as  though  all  his  preachers  babbled  not  that  in  every  sermon,  '  Burn 
these  heretics,  burn  them,  for  we  have  no  other  argument  to  convince  them  ;' 
and  as  though  they  compelled  not  both  king  and  emperor  to  swear  that  they  shall 
do  so  ere  they  crown  them  !"  It  was  customary  for  the  bishop,  when  delivering 
over  convicted  heretics  to  the  secular  magistrate  bound  by  his  oath  of  office  to 
burn  them  at  the  stake,  to  intreat  that  he  would  do  them  no  harm  ! 


I32  ENGLISH   BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

foresight  and  piety  of  those  Christian  princes  who,  like  Henry  IV., 
discerning  the  tendencies  of  heresy,  not  only  to  corrupt  the  souls  of 
their  subjects,  but  to  destroy  the  realm  "  with  common  sedition,  in- 
surrection and  open  war,"  make  provision  that  "the  sparkle  be  well 
quenched  ere  it  be  grown."  Especially  is  h£  unwearied  in  extolling 
the  zeal  of  that  "most  faithful,  virtuous,  and  erudite  prince,"  Henry 
VIII.,  who  by  his  learned  books,  and  particularly  by  his  determined 
opposition  to  heresy  within  his  own  realm,  has  proved  himself  so  emi- 
nent a  defender  of  the  faith.  He  is  filled  with  loyal  indignation 
against  Tyndale,  who,  in  his  "Obedience  of  a  Christian  Man,"  had 
counselled  his  readers  to  suffer  any  wrong  to  their  persons  or  prop- 
erty, rather  than  resist  the  secular  power  ;  a  Christian  man  being,  he 
says,  "  even  bound  to  obey  tyranny  if  it  be  not  against  his  faith  and 
the  law  of  God,  till  God  deliver  him  thereof.'"  Only  where  the 
ruler's  law  conflicts  with  his  conscience  and  the  law  of  God,  then  he 
is  bound  to  obey  God  rather  than  man,  and  patiently  abide  the  pen- 
alty. 

This  was  a  tender  point  with  the  willful  and  despotic  Henry,  who 
claimed  to  be  himself  the  conscience  of  his  kingdom,  and  More  well 
knew  how  to  touch  it.  In  that  caveat,  "  if  it  be  not  against  his  faith 
and  the  law  of  God,"  he  could  discern  the  germ  of  all  mischief. 
"  They  bid  the  people,"  he  says,*  "  for  a  countenance,  to  be  obedi- 
ent. But  they  say  therewith  that  the  laws  and  precepts  of  their  sove- 
reign do  nothing  bind  the  subjects  in  their  consciences,  but  [unless] 
the  things  by  them  forbidden  or  commanded,  were  before  forbidden 

or  commanded  in  Scripture And  thus  it  is  sure  that,  by 

their  false  doctrine,  they  must,  if  they  be  believed,  bring  the  people 
into  the  secret  contempt  and  spiritual  disobedience  and  inward' 
hatred  of  the  law  ;  whereof  must  after  follow  the  outward  breach,  and 
thereupon  outward  punishment  and  peril  of  rebellion,  whereby  the 
princes  should  be  driven  to  sore  effusion  of  their  subjects'  blood,  as 
hath  already  happened  in  Ahnain,  and  of  old  time  in  England.  Friar 
Earnest  in  his  frantic  book  biddeth  the  people  they  should  rebel  in  no 
wise.  But  he  biddeth  them  therewith  that  for  all  the  king's  command- 
ment they  should  not  suffer  Tyndale's  false  translation  to  go  out  of 
their  hands,  but  die  rather  than  leave  it.  .  .  .  And  thus  ye  see 
how  fain  he  would  glory  in  the  people's  blood.  For  he  wotteth  very 
well  that  the  king's  highness  will  in  no  wise,  nor  in  no  wise  may,  if  he 
will  save  his  own  soul,  suffer  that  false  translation  in  the  hands  of 
unlearned  people  ;  which  is  by  an  open  heretic  purposely  translated 

*  Preface  to  the  Confutation,  p.  352.        f  The  same  mentioned  in  Chap.  XIII. 


SHALL   THE   PEOPLE    HAVE   THE   BIBLE?  1 33 

false  to  the  destruction  of  so  many  souls.  Now  no  man  doubteth, 
that  Tyndale  himself  would  no  less  were  done  for  the  maintenance 
of  his  false  translation  of  the  evangelists,  than  his  evangelical  brother 
Barnes  ;  but  that  folk  should,  against  the  king's  proclamations,  keep 
still  his  books,  and  rather  than  leave  them  die  in  the  quarrel  in  de- 
fence of  his  glory,  Whereas  I  did  before  in  my  Dialogue  say,  that 
Luther's  books  be  seditious,  as  I  now  say  that  Tyndale's  be  too, 
and  moving  people  to  their  own  undoing,  to  be  disobedient  and  rebel- 
lious to  their*. sovereigns." 

But  many  a  man  can  persecute  in  theory,  whose  heart  shrinks  from 
the  practical  realization  of  his  principles.  Not  so  with  Sir  Thomas 
More.  It  is  food  for  his  mirth  to  recall  the  sufferings  of  those  godly 
men,  who  had  perished  at  the  stake  for  nothing  else  than  their  love  to 
God  and  his  truth  ;  against  whom  he  could  himself  allege  nothing  but 
their  rejection  of  the  dogmas  of  his  Church.  After  a  garbled  account 
of  the  trials  of  one  of  them,  he  exclaims,  "  And  this  lo  !  is  Sir 
Thomas  Hytton,  the  devil's  stinking  martyr,  of  whose  burning  Tyndale 
maketh  boast.  "*  "  I  hear  also, "  he  continues,  "  that  Tyndale  rejoic- 
eth  also  in  the  burning  of  Tewskbury  ;  but  I  can  see  no  very  great 
cause  why,  but  if  he  reckon  it  for  a  great  glory  that  the  man  did  abide 
still  by  the  stake  when  he  was  fast  bound  to  it."  After  stating  the 
proofs  of  Tewksbury's  guilt,  namely,  that  Wickliffe's  Wicket,  f  one  of 
Luther's  books,  and  Tyndale's  "  Mammon"  and  "  Obedience"  were 
found  in  his  house  ;  he  adds  that  in  his  opinion,  Tewksbury  would 
never  have  become  a  heretic  had  Tyndale's  ungracious  books  never 
come  into  his  hands,  "  for  which  the  poor  wretch  lieth  now  in  hell 
and  crieth  out  on  him  ;  and  Tyndale,  if  he  do  not  amend  in  time,  he 
is  like  to  find  him,  when  they  come  together,  a  hot  firebrand  burning 
at  his  back  that  all  the  water  in  the  world  will  not  be  able  to 
quench." 

We  shall  have  occasion  to  refer  again  to  these  writings  by  and  by  ; 
but  it  is  presumed  the  reader  has  had  a  sufficient  taste  of  them  for  the 
present.  Immediately  after  the  publication  of  the  "  Dialogue,"  in 
the  spring  of  1529,  Sir  Thomas  More  left  England  to  represent,  con- 
jointly with  Tunstal  and  Hackett,  the  interests  of  Henry  in  the  royal 
conference,  appointed  at  Cambray,  for  adjusting  the  differences  be- 
tween the  Emperor  and  the  King  of  France.     The  result  was  a  treaty 

*  Tyndale  had  alluded  in  one  of  his  books  to  the  constancy  of  this  good  man. 

f  This  treatise  of  the  old  reformer,  on  the  Sacrament  of  the  Supper,  had  re- 
cently been  printed,  and  was  a  favorite  manual  on  the  subject  with  the  pious 
Christians  of  the  time. 


134  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

between  Henry  and  the  Emperor,  one  article  of  which  secured  the 
continuance  of  their  commercial  relations,  the  other  a  mutual  pledge 
to  prohibit  the  printing,  sale  and  importation  of  all  Lutheran  books 
within  their  respective  dominions.*  Under  this  convenient  term 
were  included,  as  before  mentioned,  all  books  in  English  as  well  as  in 
other  languages,  offensive  to  the  Church  of  Rome  ;  and  of  these  Tyn- 
dale's  New  Testament  stood  first  on  the  list. 

This  important  negotiation  being  happily  concluded,  the  colleagues 
parted,  Tunstal  for  Antwerp,  to  repeat  the  experiment^  buying  up 
all  the  English  New  Testaments  in  that  market,  More  for  England, 
to  receive  full  power  to  put  in  practice  the  intolerant  principles  which 
he  had  advocated  with  his  pen. 

But  the  oft-repeated  challenge  of  the  reformer,  thus  expressed  in 
the  prologue  of  his  translation  of  the  Pentateuch,  remained  unan- 
swered :  "  1  submit  this  work,  and  all  other  that  I  have  either  made 
or  translated,  or  shall  in  time  to  come  (if  it  be  God's  will  that  I  fur- 
ther labor  in  that  harvest),  unto  all  them  that  submit  themselves  unto 
the  word  of  God,  to  be  corrected  by  them  ;  yea,  and  moreover,  to  be 
disallowed  and  also  burnt,  if  it  seem  worthy,  so  that  they  first  put  forth 
of  their  own  translating  another  that  is  more  correct. 

*  Anderson's  Annals,  vol.  i.,  p.  213. 


CHAPTER   XIX. 

SIR    THOMAS    MORE    AS    CHANCELLOR. 

Soon  after  Sir  Thomas  More's  return  from  France,  he  was  raised 
to  the  dignity  of  Lord  Chancellor  of  England,  made  vacant  by  the  fall 
of  Wolsey — the  highest  office  in  the  royal  gift.  The  distinction  was 
the  greater,  from  the  fact  that  this  was  the  first  time,  during  a  hun- 
dred years,  in  which  it  had  been  bestowed  on  a  layman.  This  inno- 
vation on  long-established  usages  would  once  have  been  hailed  as  an 
auspicious  omen  to  the  cause  of  religious  toleration.  When  clerical 
chancellors  used  the  office  for  the  suppression  of  free  inquiry,  it  was 
no  more  than  might  have  been  looked  for  in  men  whose  personal 
interests  were  at  stake  ;  from  a  layman  a  more  liberal  view  of  the 
general  interests  of  the  country  might  naturally  be  expected. 

The  result  was  precisely  the  reverse.  Hitherto  the  government,  as 
such,  had  taken  no  active  and  avowed  part  in  persecution  at  home. 
The  decrees,  mandates,  secret  searches,  trials  of  heretics,  etc.,  noticed 
in  the  foregoing  chapters,  had  emanated  from  the  direct  action  of  the 
Church.  Now,  however,  under  the  administration  of  the  great  layman 
and  commoner,  we  first  see  the  secular  power  openly  linked  with  the 
Church  in  this  work,  and  taking  the  lead  as  guardian  ex  officio  of  the 
religious  opinions  of  the  realm.  His  position  on  this  subject  was  sig- 
nificantly indicated  in  his  opening  speech  as  Chancellor  ;  as  also  in 
the  articles  of  impeachment  against  Wolsey,  presented  by  him  to 
Henry  in  the  name  of  the  Lords.  In  one  of  these,  the  Cardinal  is 
accused  of  having  "  interfered  with  the  due  and  direct  correction  of 
heresies,  highly  to  the  danger  and  peril  of  the  whole  body  and  good 
Christian  people  of  this  realm."  His  successor  evidently  did  not  in- 
tend that  his  policy  should  be  liable  to  such  a  charge  ;  and  if  we 
recall  the  course  of  Wolsey,  we  shall  feel  assured  that  no  half-way 
measures  were  in  contemplation. 

The  prognostic  was  soon  verified.  On  the  24th  of  December,  1529, 
just  two  months  after  his  induction  into  office,  there  appeared,  "  in 

THE     NAME     OF     THE     KlNG     OUR     SOVEREIGN     LORD, "     a     manifesto, 

exceeding  in  the  cruelty  of  its  provisions  all  that  the  bishops  had 
hitherto  attempted  by  their  own  authority.  By  this  "  fierce  and  terri- 
ble proclamation,"  as  Foxe  calls  it,  the  civil  power  bound  itself  to  be 


136  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

the  right  arm  of  the  Church  in  the  extirpation  of  heresy.  "  The 
Chancellor,  the  Treasurer  of  England,  the  Justice  of  the  one  bench 
and  of  the  other,  Justices  of  Peace,  Sheriffs,  Mayors,  Bailies,  and 
other  officers, "  such  is  its  language,  "  shall  make  oath,  on  taking  their 
charge,  to  give  their  whole  power  and  diligence  to  put  away,  and 
make  utterly  to  cease  and  destroy,  all  errors  and  heresies  commonly 
called  Lollardies.*  They  shall  assist  the  Bishops  and  their  Commis- 
saries, shall  favor  and  maintain  them  as  often  as  by  them  required." 
"  The  Justices  of  the  King's  Bench,  Justices  of  Peace  and  of  Assize, 
shall  inquire  at  their  sessions  of  all  those  that  hold  errors  or  heresies, 
and  who  be  their  maintainers,  the  common  writers  of  books,  and  also 

of  their  schools,  sermons,  etc." "  Offenders  to  be 

delivered  to  the  Bishops  or  Commissaries,  by  indenture  between 
them,  to  be  made  within  ten  days  or  sooner,  ....  to  be 
acquitted  or  condemned  after  the  laws  of  Holy  Church."  If  con- 
victed, the  secular  power  was  again  to  receive  them,  and  without  far- 
ther trial,  to  carry  the  sentence  of  the  bishop  into  execution.  The 
proclamation  was  especially  severe  against  the  writers,  venders,  and 
readers  of  heretical  books,  of  which  a  list  was  given,  including 
ninety-four  in  Latin,  and  twenty-four  in  English.  At  the  head  stood 
what  More  called  "  the  father  of  them  all,"  the  New  Testament  of 
Tyndale. 

Yet  so  little  effect  had  these  vigorous  measures  in  counteracting  the 
mischief,  that  in  the  following  spring  the  aged  Bishop  of  Norwich 
complains,  in  a  pathetic  appeal  to  the  Archbishop,  that  he  is  "  accum- 
bered  by  such  as  keepeth  and  readeth  these  erroneous  books  in  Eng- 
lish, and  believe  and  give  credence  to  the  same,  and  teach  others  that 
they  should  do  so."  "  My  Lord,"  he  adds,  "  I  have  done  that  lyeth 
in  me  for  the  suppression  of  such  persons  ;  but  it  passeth  my  power 
or  of  any  spiritual  man  to  do  it  ";  and  he  expresses  his  apprehension 
that  if  not  speedily  checked,  "  they  will  undo  us  all." 

But  the  high  powers  of  church  and  state  were  well  aware  of  the 
alarming  aspect  of  things,  and  were  already  preparing  for  a  movement 
which  they  intended  should  be  decisive. 

In  the  library  at  Lambeth  palace  is  preserved  an  ancient  docu- 
ment, bearing  date  May  28,  1530,  which  covers  eight  skins  of  parch- 
ment, written  on  both  sides  in  a  very  fine  hand,  the  record  of  this 
combination  of  the  temporal  and  spiritual  powers  to  prop  up  the  fall- 

*  This  name,  as  Anderson  remarks,  points  to  indigenous  heresies  identical 
with  those  of  Wickliffe  and  his  followers  ;  not  to  those  of  foreign  origin,  which 
were,  in  distinction,  called  Lutheran — though  the  latter  term  was  often  applied  to 
both. 


SIR  THOMAS   MORE   AS   CHANCELLOR.  137 

ing  kingdom  of  darkness  and  check  the  triumphant  progress  of  the 
word  of  God.*  The  Lord  Chancellor  thus  describes  the  imposing 
ceremonial  of  its  publication  :  "  For  I  well  know  that  the  King's 
highness,  which  as  he  for  his  most  faithful  mind  to  Godt  nothing 
more  effectually  desireth  than  the  maintenance  of  the  true  Catholic 
faith  whereof  he  is,  by  his  no  more  honorable  than  well-deserved  title, 
Defensor  ;  so  nothing  more  detesteth,  than  these  pestilent  books  that 
Tyndale  and  such  other  send  into  the  realm,  to  set  forth  their  abomi- 
nable heresies  withal  ;  doth  of  his  blessed  disposition,  of  all  earthly 
things  abhor  the  necessity  to  do  punishment  ;  and  for  that  cause  hath 
not  only,  by  his  most  famous  erudite  books,  both  in  English  and  in 
Latin,  declared  his  most  Catholic  purpose  and  intent,  but,  also,  by 
his  open  proclamation  divers  times  iterate  and  renewed,  and  finally, 
in  his  own  most  royal  person,  in  the  Star  Chamber,  most  eloquently 
by  his  own  mouth,  in  great  presence  of  his  lords  spiritual  and  tempo- 
ral, gave  monition  and  warning  to  all  justices  of  peace  in  every  quar- 
ter of  his  realm,  then  assembled  before  his  highness,  to  be  by  them  in 
all  their  countries  [shires]  to  all  his  people  declared,  and  did  prohibit 
and  forbid  upon  great  pains,  the  bringing  in,  reading,  and  keeping 
any  of  those  pernicious,  poisoned  books,  to  the  intent  that  every  sub- 
ject of  his,  by  the  mean  of  such  manifold  effectual  warning,  with  his 
gracious  remission  of  their  former  offence  in  his  commandments 
before  broken,  should  from  thenceforth  avoid  and  eschew  the  peril 
and  danger  of  punishment,  and  not  drive  his  highness  of  necessity  to 
the  thing  from  which  the  mildness  of  his  benign  nature  abhorreth."f 

The  instrument  commences  with  a  solemn  appeal  to  God  and  all 
true  Christian  people,  and  an  explanation  of  the  reasons  for  which  it 
was  set  forth  ;  followed  by  a  Bill  in  English,  to  be  published  by  the 
preachers  in  all  the  realm  ;  and  closes  with  the  statement,  that  his 
Grace's  Highness  did  "  then  and  there,  in  the  presence  of  all  the  per- 
sonages there  assembled,  require  three  notaries  to  make  public  and 
authentic  instruments,  and  set  thereunto  our  seal  accordingly." 

This  great  movement  had  not  been  resolved  on  without  due  fore- 
thought and  preparation.  It  is  stated  in  the  preamble  to  the  instru- 
ment itself,  that  the  King,  being  informed  of  the  alarming  spread  of 
heresy  in  his  dominions,  through  books  in  the  English  tongue  brought 
from  beyond  the  sea,  had  caused  a  collection  of  these  to  be  submitted 
to  "  his  council,  prelates,  and  divers  learned  men  of  both  universities, 
and  others,  for  examination  ;  who,  being  thus  prepared,  met  for  con- 

*  Offor's  Memoir  of  Tyndale,  p.  54. 
f  Preface  to  the  Confutation,  p.  351. 


I38  ENGLISH   BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

sultation  at  the  palace  at  Westminster,  and  unanimously  resolved 
that  the  said  books  "  do  swarm  full  of  heresies  and  detestable  opin- 
ions." These  heresies,  some  two  hundred  in  number,  are  engrossed 
at  full  length  on  the  deed  ;  which  proceeds  to  declare,  that  "  the 
books  containing  the  same,  with  the  translation  also  of  Scripture,  cor- 
rupted by  William  Tyndale,  as  well  in  the  Old  Testament  as  in  the 
New,  the  King's  highness,  with  the  assent  of  the  prelates  and  univer 
sities,  has  determined  utterly  to  be  expelled,  rejected,  and  put  away 
out  of  the  hands  of  his  people.  And  the  King  orders  all  preachers  in 
his  realm  to  publish  the  commands  of  his  highness  in  a  Bill,  in  Eng- 
lish, to  be  read  in  ev.ery  church  and  chapel  in  the  kingdom  during 
divine  service." 

This  Bill  required  all  the  King's  subjects,  who  had  in  possession  the 
books  specified,  or  others  of  like  character,  henceforth  "  to  detest 
them,  to  abhor  them,  to  keep  them  not  in  their  hands,  to  deliver 
them  up  to  the  superiors,  such  as  call  for  them.  And  if  anything  of 
the  poison  remained  in  their  minds,  they  were  to  forget  it,  or  by  in- 
formation of  the  truth,  expel  it."  "  This,"  it  proceeds,  "  ye  ought 
to  do  ;  and  being  obstinate,  the  prelates  of  the  Church  ought  to  com- 
pel you  ;  and  your  Prince  to  punish  and  correct  you,  not  doing  the 
same."  Then  follows  the  King's  decision  in  regard  to  "the  Scrip- 
ture in  the  vulgar  tongue,  and  in  the  common  people  s  hands,""  which  is  : 
"  that  having  of  the  whole  Scripture  is  not  necessary  to  Christian 
men  ;  and  that  the  King's  highness,  having  advised  with  his  council 
and  other  great  learned  men,  thinketh  in  his  conscience,  that  the 
divulging  of  the  Scripture  at  this  time,  in  the  English  tongue,  to  be 
committed  to  the  people,  should  rather  be  to  their  farther  confusion 
and  destruction,  than  to  the  edification  of  their  souls.  And  it  was 
thought  there,  in  that  assembly,  that  the  King's  highness  and  the  pre- 
lates in  so  doing,  not  suffering  the  Scriptures  to  be  divulged  and 
communicated  to  the  people  in  the  English  tongue  at  this  time,  doth 
well.' 

This  action  was  followed  by  a  royal  proclamation,  directed  ex- 
pressly and  solely  against  the  works  of  Tyndale.  "  The  King's  sub- 
jects are  commanded  to  deliver  up  all  such  books  within  fifteen  days  ; 
and  the  judges,  justices,  constables,  and  all  officers,  are  ordered  to 
seize  all  who  refuse,  or  are  suspected  of  possessing  them,  and  bring 
them  before  the  King  and  his  council,  that  they  may  be  corrected 
and  punished  for  their  contempt,  to  the  terrible  example  of  other 
transgressors."  It  decrees,  moreover,  that  the  Scriptures  in  English 
"  are  books  of  heresy,  and  shall  be  clearly  exterminated  and  exiled  out 
of  this  realm  of  England  forever." 

« 


SIR   THOMAS    MORE   AS   CHANCELLOR.  1 39 

These  formidable  manifestos  received  an  appropriate  seal  and  con- 
firmation at  the  hands  of  Bishop  Tunstal,  the  friend  and  confidant  of 
the  Lord  Chancellor,  in  a  second  great  Bible-burning  at  Paul's  Cross. 
The  story  of  the  Bibles  used  for  this  purpose  has  been  often  repeated, 
and  its  truth,  in  substance,  is  beyond  a  doubt. 

Bishop  Tunstal,  it  will  be  recollected,  had  proceeded  from  Cambray 
to  Antwerp,  for  the  purpose  of  getting  possession  of  the  English 
Bibles  then  in  that  market.  Foxe*  thus  relates  the  process  by  which 
he  accomplished  his  object  : 

"  Here  it  is  to  be  remembered,  that  at  this  present  time  one 
Augustine  Packington,  a  mercer  and  merchant  of  London,  the  same 
time  was  in  Antwerp,  where  the  Bishop  then  was  ;  and  this  Packing- 
ton  was  a  man  that  highly  favored  Tyndale,  but  to  the  Bishop  showed 
the  contrary.  The  Bishop,  desirous  of  having  his  purpose  brought  to 
pass,  communed  of  the  New  Testaments,  and  how  gladly  he  would 
buy  them.  Packington  then  hearing  him  say  so,  said  :  '  My  Lord,  if 
it  be  your  pleasure,  I  can  in  this  matter  do  more,  I  dare  say,  than 
most  of  the  merchants  of  England  that  are  here,  for  I  know  the 
Dutchmen  (i.e.,  Germans)  and  strangers  that  have  bought  them  of 
Tyndale,  and  have  them  here  to  sell  ;  so  that  if  it  be  your  Lordship's 
pleasure  to  pay  for  them — for  otherwise  I  cannot  come  by  them,  but 
I  must  disburse  money  for  them — I  will  then  assure  you  to  have 
every  book  of  them  that  is  imprinted,  and  is  here  unsold.'  The 
Bishop  said  :  '  Gentle  Mr.  Packington,  do  your  diligence  and  get 
them  ;  and  with  all  my  heart  I  will  pay  for  them,  whatever  they  cost 
you  ;  for  the  books  are  erroneous  and  naught,  and  I  intend  surely  to 
destroy  them  all,  and  to  burn  them  at  Paul's  Cross.'  Augustine 
Packington  then  came  to  Tyndale,  and  said  :  '  William,  I  know  thou 
art  a  poor  man,  and  hast  a  heap  of  New  Testaments  and  books  by 
thee,  for  which  thou  hast  both  endangered  thy  friends  and  beggared 
thyself,  and  I  have  now  gotten  thee  a  merchant,  which,  with  ready 
money,  shall  dispatch  thee  of  all  that  thou  hast,  if  you  think  it  profit- 
able to  yourself.'  'Who  is  the  merchant?'  said  Tyndale.  'The 
Bishop  of  London,'  said  Packington.  '  O,  that  is  because  he  will 
burn  them,'  said  Tyndale.  '  Yes,' quoth  Packington.  'I  am  the 
gladder,'  said  Tyndale,  '  for  these  two  benefits  shall  come  thereof  :  I 
shall  get  money  to  bring  myself  out  of  debt,  and  the  whole  world  will 
cry  out  against  the  burning  of  God's  word  ;  and  the  overplus  of  the 
money  that  shall  remain  to  me,  shall  make  me  more  studious  to  cor- 
rect the  said  New  Testament,    and  so  newly   to   imprint  the  same 

*  Anderson,  vol.  i.,  p.  214. 


140  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

again  ;  and  I  trust  the  second  will  much  better  like  [please]  you  than 
ever  did  the  first.'  So,  forward  went  the  bargain  :  the  Bishop  had 
the  books,  Packington  had  the  thanks,  and  Tyndale  had  the  money."* 

These  were  the  volumes  now  brought  forth  to  signalize,  by  a  bon- 
fire of  Bibles,  the  recent  renewal  of  the  marriage  covenant  between 
the  State  and  the  Church.  In  the  words  of  Anderson,  "  The  Clergy 
and  the  Star  Chamber  were  now  in  perfect  harmony." 

But  lest  there  be  any  doubt  whether  he  were  indeed  the  leader  in 
these  measures,  the  Lord  Chancellor  has  made  a  record  on  the  subject 
with  his  own  pen.  In  the  preface  to  the  Confutation  (published  in 
1532,  the  third  year  of  his  chancellorship),  immediately  after  the  pas- 
sage quoted  on  p.  137,  he  adds  :  "  Now  seeing  the  King's  gracious 
purpose  in  this  point,  I  reckon  that,  being  his  unworthy  Chancellor,  it 
appertaineth,  as  I  said,  unto  my  part  and  duty,  to  follow  the  example 
of  his  noble  grace,  and  after  my  poor  wit  and  learning,  with  opening 
to  his  people  the  malice  and  poison  of  these  pernicious  books,  to  help 
as  much  as  in  me  is,  that  his  people,  abandoning  the  contagion  of  all 
such  pestilent  writing,  may  be  far  from  infection,  and  thereby  from 
all  such  punishment,  as  following  thereupon,  doth  oftentimes  rather 
serve  to  make  other  beware  that  are  yet  clear,  than  to  cure  and  heal 
well  those  that  are  already  infected  ;  so  hard  is  that  carbuncle  catch- 
ing once  a  core  to  be  by  any  man  well  and  surely  cured.  Howbeit, 
God  so  worketh  that  sometime  it  is.  Toward  the  help  whereof,  or 
if  it  haply  be  incurable,  then  to  the  clean  cutting  out  that  part  for  in- 
fection of  the  remnant,  am  I  by  mine  office  in  virtue  of  my  oath,  ana 
every  officer  of  justice  through  the  realm  for  his  rate,  right  especially 
bounden,  not  in  reason  only  and  good  congruence,  but  also  by  plain 
obedience  and  statute." 

During  his  whole  administration  the  fury  of  religious  persecution 
never  relaxed.  On  his  hands,  not  less  than  on  the  bishops'  whose 
zeal  he  stimulated,  and  over  whose  most  execrable  acts  he  cast  the 
shield  of  his  mighty  influence  and  authority,  lies  the  blood  of  the 
martyrs  who  perished  during  the  reign  of  terror.     Some  were  impris- 

*  Tyndale's  conduct,  as  thus  represented  by  Foxe,  has  been  objected  to,  as 
not  strictly  in  accordance  with  that  "  simplicity  and  godly  sincerity"  which  usu- 
ally characterized  him.  It  is  very  certain  that  he  could  never  have  originated  or 
managed  such  a  negotiation  ;  but  one  can  imagine  him  smiling  in  grave  humor, 
to  see  the  wily  enemy  of  truth  thus  circumvent  himself.  It  was  a  bona  fide  sale  ; 
the  Bishop  had  for  his  money  just  what  he  wanted — only  Tyndale  turned  the 
bargain  from  his  bad  intent  to  the  good  one  of  perfecting  and  multiplying  the 
English  Bible.  He  attached  no  such  sacreuness  to  a  translation  of  the  Scriptures, 
as  to  flinch  from  its  destruction,  when  this  was  to  be  the  means  of  furnishing 
one  nearer  to  the  inspired  original. 


SIR   THOMAS   MORE   AS    CHANCELLOR.  141 

oned,  loaded  with  irons,  in  his  own  house  ;  some  were  whipped,  some 
subjected  to  the  torture  of  the  rack,  under  his  personal  supervision, 
while  his  mocking  jests  insulted  the  agony  of  his  victims.  He  was, 
moreover,  deeply  involved  in  those  dastardly  intrigues  for  entrapping 
Tyndale  which  ended  in  the  imprisonment  and  death  of  this  friend  of 
God  and  man. 

It  is  vain  for  his  eulogists  to  attempt  to  wipe  out  these  stains  upon 
his  memory,  by  charging  Protestant  narrators  with  misrepresenting 
facts.  Were  there  not  a  line  of  other  testimony  on  record  against 
him,  his  own  writings  bear  witness  to  principles  so  infamous  and  a 
heart  so  cruel,  that  they  would  have  consigned  any  other  man  to  the 
execration  of  the  world.  His  writings  after  he  retired  from  office 
show,  if  possible,  a  still  more  bitter  and  blood-thirsty  spirit  than  while 
he  was  in  active  life.  A  great  scandal  had  come  upon  the  clergy  in 
consequence  of  their  tyrannical  use  of  the  law  ex  officio,  by  which 
persons  were  arrested  on  secret  information  or  mere  suspicion  of 
heresy,  and  in  secret  trial,  without  being  confronted  with  their 
accusers,  were  condemned  to  the  severest  punishments,  even  to  death 
at  the  stake,  on  evidence  extorted  from  themselves  by  cross-examina- 
tions, threats  and  tortures.  Even  the  mere  inability  to  disprove  the 
charge,  was  ground  sufficient  for  the  extremest  proceedings  of  this 
English  Inquisition.  Thus  might  any  industrious,  peaceable,  virtu- 
ous citizen,  who  had  incurred  the  hatred  of  the  clergy,  or  even  of  an 
ill-minded  neighbor,  be  snatched  without  warning  from  his  dependent 
family,  and  after  being  hurried  through  a  mock  trial,  be  exposed  as 
an  abjuring  heretic  to  the  derision  of  the  populace  ;  or,  as  contuma- 
cious, be  immured  in  a  loathsome  dungeon,  or  be  led  out  to  an  igno- 
minious and  cruel  death.  Many  such  cases  are  related  by  Foxe, 
which  divide  the  heart  between  pity  and  admiration  for  the  sufferer 
and  burning  indignation  against  those  who,  under  the  holy  name  of 
religion,  could  thus  oppress  their  fellow  men.  Who  would  not  have 
thought  that  Sir  Thomas  More,  the  enlightened,  the  just,  the  humane, 
as  he  is  represented,  would  have  set  himself  as  a  rock  against  this 
abuse  of  irresponsible  power  ?  On  the  contrary,  he  defends  the  odi- 
ous law  and  its  horrible  abuses,  with  all  the  skill  of  which  he  is  mas- 
ter. We  have  no  room  for  his  arguments  here  ;  but  those  who  feel  a 
curiosity  to  know  with  what  reasons  the  most  enlightened  English 
statesman  of  his  time  could  advocate  a  criminal  process  for  mere 
opinion,  which  is  now  banished  from  the  common  law  of  England  in 
the  case  of  the  worst  felcns,  can  find  them  in  his  Apology,  and  his 
Debellation  of  Salem  and  £yzance*  both  written  the  year  after  his 

*  These  two  works  belonged  to  a  controversy  between  Sir  Thomas  More  and 


142  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

retirement.  It  was  objected  to  him  at  that  time,  that  the  felon  had 
at  least  the  benefit  of  trial  by  jury  ;  to  which  he  replies,  that  he  never 
saw  the  day  yet,  but  that  he  durst  trust  as  well  the  truth  of  one  judge 
as  of  two  juries  !"* 

But  he  did  something  worse,  if  possible,  than  to  defend  the  law  ex 
officio,  viz.,  advocated  the  violation,  on  the  ground  of  heresy,  of  safe- 
conducts  granted  by  the  King.  Such  had  been  furnished  to  Dr. 
Barnes,  to  allow  him  to  come  for  a  limited  time  into  England.  More 
says  of  him  (Pref.  to  Conf.  p.  343),  "  And  yet  hath  he  so  demeaned 
himself  since  his  coming  hither,  that  he  hath  clearly  broken  and  for- 
feited his  safe  conduct,  and  lawfully  might  be  burned  for  his  heresies 
if  we  would  lay  his  heresies  and  his  demeanor  since  his  coming  hither 
both  twain  unto  his  charge."  To  this  Frith  replies  (Eng.  Reformers, 
vol.  iii.,  p.  422)  :  "  This  your  saying  is  but  a  vain  gloss  ;  for  I  myself 
did  read  the  safe-conduct  that  came  unto  him,  which  had  but  only 
this  one  condition  annexed  unto  it,  that  if  he  came  before  the  feast  of 
Christmas  next  ensuing,  he  should  have  free  liberty  to  depart  at  his 
pleasure,  and  this  condition  I  know  was  fulfilled.  How  then  should 
he  forfeit  his  safe-conduct  ?"  Frith  then  turns  the  case  very  adroitly 
against  the  Ex-Chancellor.  "  But,"  says  he,  "  Mr.  More  hath 
learned  of  his  masters,  our  prelates  (whose  proctor  he  is),  to  depress 
our  Prince's  prerogative,  that  men  ought  not  to  keep  any  promise  with 
heretics.  As  though  the  King's  grace  might  not  admit  any  man  to 
come  and  go  freely  into  his  Grace's  realm,  but  that  he  must  have 
leave  of  our  prelates  !  For  else  they  might  lay  heresy  against  the 
person,  and  so  slay  him  contrary  to  the  King's  safe-conduct  ;  which 
things  all  wise  men  do  know  to  be  prejudicial  to  his  Grace's  preroga- 
tive royal.  .  .  .  These  words  had  been  very  extreme,  and  wor- 
thy to  have  been  looked  upon,  although  they  had  been  written  by 
some  presumptuous  prelate.     But  that  a  lay  man,  so  highly  promoted 

an  anonymous  writer,  known,  however,  to  be  Christopher  Saint  Germain,  an 
eminent  jurist  of  the  day,  who,  in  two  treatises,  "  The  Pacifier,''  and  "  Salem 
and  Bizance,"had  taken  ground,  though  with  great  temper  and  judgment,  against 
the  tyrannical  course  of  the  clergy  in  regard  to  heresy.  He  was  a  Catholic,  but 
not  a  Romanist  :  and  the  quotations  made  from  his  writings  in  More's  replies, 
show  him  to  have  been  a  man  of  equal  humanity  and  justice,  far  exceeding  in 
breadth  and  liberality  of  views  his  more  celebrated  contemporary.  They  are  of 
great  value,  also,  for  the  light  they  throw  on  the  prevailing  state  of  opinion  in 
the  community.  More  acknowledged,  with  a  sort  of  peevish  candor,  that  they 
had  found  great  favor  with  the  public,  and  that  their  brevity  and  mildness  of 
spirit  were  held  up  as  models  for  his  own  imitation.  We  cannot  see,  however, 
that  in  either  respect  he  profited  by  the  lesson. 
*  Debellacion,  etc.,  p.  988. 


SIR   THOMAS    MORE   AS   CHANCELLOR.  143 

by  his  Prince,  should  speak  them,  and  also  cause  them  openly  to  be 
published  among  his  Grace's  commons,  to  reject  the  estimation  of  his 
royal  power,  doth,  in  my  mind,  deserve  correction.  Notwithstand- 
ing, I  leave  the  judgment  and  determination  unto  the  discretion  of  his 
Grace's  honorable  council." 

When  the  bishops  came  to  offer  him  several  thousand  pounds  in 
gold,  contributed  by  the  clergy  as  an  expression  of  their  gratitude  for 
the  important  service  rendered  them  by  his  pen,  he  utterly  refused  it, 
and  said  he  would  rather  it  were  all  thrown  into  the  Thames,  than 
that  he  or  his  family  should  be  benefited  by  it  to  the  value  of  a  single 
groat.  He  was  actuated  by  a  far  different,  shall  we  say  far  better, 
motive  than  the  love  of  money.  His  inspiration  was  unmixed  relig- 
ious zealotism. 

"  For  albeit  they  were,"  he  says,  "  as  indeed  they  were,  both  good 
men  and  honorable,  yet  look  I  for  my  thank  of  God  that  is  their  bet- 
ter, and  for  whose  sake  I  take  the  labor,  and  not  for  theirs."  *  He 
verily  thought  that  he  was  doing  God  service. 

This  inspiration  never  failed  him,  nor  have  we  any  evidence  that 
the  asperity  of  his  zeal  was  in  any  degree  softened  by  his  own  bitter 
experience  of  persecution  for  opinion's  sake.  There  came  a  time 
when  Sir  Thomas  More  found  that  he  had  a  law  in  his  own  bosom,  of 
more  authority  than  the  behest  of  a  king.  When  Henry  requested 
him  to  acknowledge,  against  his  conscience,  the  validity  of  his  mar- 
riage with  Anne  Boleyn,  and  his  supremacy  over  the  Church  in  Eng- 
land, he  felt  obliged  to  refuse,  though  at  the  forfeiture  of  such  honors 
as  few  men  have  to  lose,  of  domestic  ties  peculiarly  endearing,  and  of 
life  itself.  Yet  even  when  passing  through  that  bitter  conflict  of  soul, 
so  touchingly  described  in  his  letters  to  his  beloved  daughter  Mar- 
garet,! feeling  that  without  the  special  help  of  God  he  should  fail  in 
his  allegiance  to  truth — even  then,  no  remorseful  memory  seems  to 
have  crossed  his  mind  of  those  whom  he  had  racked,  body  and  soul, 
to  compel  them  to  violate  their  consciences.  When  it  was  urged  upon 
him,  at  an  examination  before  the  king's  council,  that  no  more  was 
required  of  him  than  he  had  required  of  heretics,  and  for  the  refusal 
of  which  they  had  died  at  the  stake  ;  he  replied  that  the  cases  were 
not  parallel,  since  their  consciences  were  in  opposition  to  the  con- 
science of  universal  Christendom,  i.e.,  of  the  holy  Catholic  Church, 
as  expressed  by  its  constituted  authorities  ;  %  but  his  was  in  unison 

*  Apology,  p.  876. 

f  More's  English  Works,  Letter  to  Margaret  Roper,  p.  1449. 
%  Ibid,  p.  1453.     An  illustration  of  this  principle,  interesting  for  its  bearings  on 
a  recent  decision  of  the  Romish  Church,  will  be  found  in  the  Appendix. 


144  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

with  it  !  Even  in  those  devotional  treatises  composed  in  prison,  so 
breathing  of  self-abasement,  of  submission  to  the  divine  will,  of 
aspiration  toward  God,  the  name  of  heretic  revives  the  same  hard, 
unrelenting  tone  as  he  had  used  in  the  days  of  his  pride  and  power. 
How  was  it  that  the  shades  of  the  murdered  Bilney  and  Bayfield,  of 
Bainham  *  and  Tewksbury,  and  of  other  innocent  and  holy  martyrs, 
did  not  crowd  his  solitary  cell,  making  his  heart  quake  with  the  hor- 
rors of  the  world  to  come,  or  humbling  him  in  dust  and  ashes  as  the 
chief  of  sinners,  because  he  had  persecuted  the  Church  of  God  !  Ah, 
had  it  been  so,  he  would  have  left  a  fairer  name  to  posterity. 

When  we  contemplate  Sir  Thomas  More  in  his  patriarchal  house- 
hold, the  idol  of  that  happy,  virtuous,  accomplished  family,  who 
owed  all  they  were  to  his  wise  and  affectionate  training  ;  as  the  kind 
and  charitable  neighbor  ;  as  the  incorruptible  statesman  ;  as  the  mar- 
tyr to  conscience,  how  can  we  but  admire  and  honor  him  ?  Would 
that  the  dark  pages  of  his  history  were  not  so  much  more  numerous 
than  the  bright  !  Would  that  the  beautiful  spectacle  of  even  those 
last  scenes  were  not  clouded  by  the  thought  of  what  he  had  done,  as 
the  fierce  religious  partizan,  to  foster  in  his  sovereign  those  towering 
notions  of  royal  prerogative,  and  that  tiger  thirst  for  blood,  of  which 
he  himself  was  the  victim.  Surely,  it  was  no  more  than  a  just  retri- 
bution, that  he  should  taste  of  "  the  mildness  of  that  benig?i  nature," 
which  he  had  so  extolled  when  it  was  directed  against  heretics.  Of 
no  man  could  it  ever  be  said  more  truly  :  "  He  ate  of  the  fruit  of  his 
own  doing,  and  was  filled  with  his  own  devices." 

*  Bainham,  while  standing  by  the  stake,  spoke  as  follows  :  "  I  came  hither, 
good  people,  accused  and  condemned  for  an  heretic,  Sir  Thoma3  More  being  my 
accuser  and  my  judge.  And  these  be  the  articles  that  I  die  for,  which  be  a  very 
truth  and  grounded  on  God's  word,  and  no  heresy.  They  be  these  :  First,  I  say 
it  is  lawful  for  every  man  and  woman  to  have  God's. book  in  their  mother- 
tongue.  The  second  article  is,  that  the  Bishop  of  Rome  is  Antichrist,  and  that 
I  know  of  no  other  keys  of  heaven's  gates  but  only  the  preaching  of  the  Law 
and  the  Gospel  ;  and  that  there  is  no  other  purgatory  but  the  purgatory  of 
Christ's  blood."  Almost  his  last  words  were:  "The  Lord  forgive  Sir  Thomas 
More." 


CHAPTER   XX. 

THE    ROYAL    PATRONESS. 

With  the  fall  of  Sir  Thomas  More  the  fury  of  persecution  sensibly 
abated.  Not  that  his  great  allies,  the  bishops,  had  lost  in  any  degree 
the  persecuting  spirit  ;  but  they  had  lost  in  him  the  directing  mind 
and  will.  There  was  no  longer  the  same  thorough  inquisition  after 
heretical  books  ;  Bibles  came  more  and  more  freely  into  England, 
and  were  read  with  far  less  peril  to  life.  In  this  result  we  see  indeed 
the  concurrence  of  other  influences  which  began  at  this  time  to  affect 
sensibly  the  interests  of  the  papal  party. 

Among  these  influences  none  was  more  potent  than  the  countenance 
given  to  the  translation  and  dissemination  of  the  Holy  Scriptures  by 
Anne  Boleyn,  the  second  wife  of  Henry  VIII. 

We  need  not  here  recount  the  steps  by  which  the  unfortunate 
Katherine's  beautiful  and  accomplished  maid  of  honor  became  the 
rival  and  successor  of  her  royal  mistress.  It  is  sufficient  for  our  pur- 
pose to  note  the  fact  that,  notwithstanding  the  earnestness  with  which 
Tyndale,  like  another  John  the  Baptist,  had  condemned  the  king's 
divorce  from  Katherine,  as  a  wrong  not  merely  to  the  immediate 
sufferer,  but  to  that  institution  which  God  had  ordained  as  the  chief 
guardian  of  social  order  and  virtue,  the  influence  of  Anne  was  steadily 
and  courageously  given,  during  the  entire  period  of  her  reign,  to  the 
furtherance  of  those  views,  for  the  sake  of  which  the  great  reformer 
had  been  so  long  an  exile,  and  the  object  of  relentless  persecution 
from  king  and  clergy.  From  the  date  of  her  marriage,  the  working 
of  a  new  and  powerful  element  was  felt  in  the  English  court.  Foxe 
says  of  the  period  immediately  preceding  :  "  So  great  was  the  trouble 
of  those  times  that  it  would  overcharge  my  story  to  recite  the  names 
of  all  them  which,  during  those  bitter  days,  before  the  coming  in  of 
Queen  Anne,  either  were  driven  out  of  the  realm,  or  were  cast  out 
from  their  goods  and  houses,  or  brought  to  open  shame  by  abjura- 
tion." The  "new  learning"  came  gradually  into  the  ascendant; 
Cranmer,  Latimer,  and  others  of  like  character,  men  who  pleaded 
openly  for  the  Bible  in  the  vernacular,  were  promoted  to  positions  of 
high  responsibility  ;  the  Scriptures  came  more  and  more  freely  into' 
England,  and  were  read  without  molestation. 


I46  ENGLISH   BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

Anne's  agency  in  these  changes  cannot,  in  general,  be  directly 
traced  ;  but  the  unanimous  judgment  of  all  parties  at  the  time,  indi- 
cates her  as  the  main  spring  of  influence  in  this  direction.  In  one 
instance  of  no  little  interest,  we  have  the  direct  proof  in  her  own 
handwriting,  of  her  great  power  and  the  use  she  made  of  it.  Richard 
Harman  will  be  remembered  as  the  English  merchant  at  Antwerp, 
who  had  taken  so  forward  a  part  in  bringing  the  early  editions  of  Tyn- 
dale's  New  Testament  into  England.  For  this,  he  had  not  only 
suffered  imprisonment  and  heavy  pecuniary  loss,  but,  what  to  a  man 
of  his  character  was  a  far  severer  calamity,  expulsion  from  the  Hon- 
orable Company  of  English  Merchant  Adventurers,'  and  this  unright- 
eous action  had  never  been  reversed.  But  the  very  year  after  Anne 
became  Queen,  Harman  ventured  into  England  to  seek  redress.  His 
application  seems  to  have  been  made  directly  to  her,  as  the  known 
friend  of  the  Reformation  ;  and  the  result — won  from  the  King,  no 
doubt,  by  her  persuasions — appears  in  the  following  letter  from  her  to 
Crumwell,  the  State  Secretary  : 

Anne  the  Queen. 

Trusty  and  right  well  beloved,  we  greet  you  well.  And  whereas,  we  be  cred- 
ibly informed  that  the  bearer  hereof — Richard  Harman — merchant  and  citizen  of 
Antwerp,  in  Brabant,  was,  in  the  time  of  the  late  Lord  Cardinal,  put  and  expelled 
from  his  freedom  and  fellowship,  of  and  in  the  English  house  there,  for  nothing 
else  (as  he  afnrmeth)  but  only  for  that  he,  still  like  a  good  Christian  man,  did 
both  with  his  goods  and  policy,  to  his  great  hurt  and  hindrance  in  this  world,  help 
to  the  setting  forth  of  the  New  Testament  in  English.  We  therefore  desire  and 
instantly  pray  you,  that  with  all  speed  and  favor  convenient,  ye  will  cause  this 
good  and  honest  merchant,  being  my  Lord's  true,  faithful,  and  loving  subiect. 
to  be  restored  to  his  pristine  freedom,  liberty,  and  fellowship  aforesaid,  and  the 
sooner  at  this  our  request,  and  at  your  good  leisure  to  hear  him  in  such  things 
as  he  hath  to  make  further  relation  unto  you  in  this  behalf.  Given  under  our 
signet,  at  my  Lord's  manor  of  Greenwich,  the  thirteenth  day  of  May.  To  our 
trusty  and  right  well  beloved,  Thomas  Crumwell,  Squire,  Chief  Secretary  unto 
niy  Lord,  the  King's  Highness. 

The  tone  of  this  royal  epistle — royal  in  the  best  sense  of  the  word 
— cannot  but  strike  the  reader  with  admiration.  It  is  to  be  remem- 
bered, that  though  Bibles  were  now  allowed  to  come  silently  into  the 
kingdom,  it  was  still  in  violation  of  express  law  and  statute,  and 
against  the  opposition  of  a  powerful  and  embittered  party.  Yet  she 
takes  pains  to  state  precisely  the  offence  for  which  Harman  had 
suffered,  and  justifies  it  as  the  right  and  praiseworthy  act  of  "  a  good 
Christian  man."  As  Anderson  well  remarks,  "  no  man,  either  of 
office  or  influence,  ever  so  expressed  himself  while  Tyndale  lived." 

Tyndale  had,  without  doubt,  already  been  made  acquainted  with  the 


THE   ROYAL   PATRONESS.  147 

noble  stand  taken  for  the  truth,  by  the  woman  whose  elevation  he 
had  honestly  opposed  ;  and  Richard  Harman  would  not  now  fail,  on 
his  return  to  Antwerp,  to  inform  his  friend  of  the  agency  through 
which  his  errand  had  reached  so  happy  an  issue.  Tyndale  was  then 
engaged  in  publishing  his  revised  New  Testament.  His  recognition 
of  the  services  of  Anne  to  the  cause  he  loved  was  equally  appropriate 
and  delicate — a  beautifully  printed  and  illuminated  copy  of  the  divine 
word,  on  vellum,  with  the  Queen's  name,  Anna  Regina  Anglic, 
arranged  in  large  ornamental  letters  around  the  title  page.*  In  the 
narrative  yet  to  be  given  of  the  persecution  to  which  Tyndale  was 
afterward  subjected,  we  shall  find  traces  of  her  personal  interest  in 
the  reformer,  prompting  measures  which  might  have  saved  him,  had 
she  been  seconded  by  hearts  as  brave  and  unselfish  as  her  own. 

The  close  of  the  year  1534  was  marked  by  a  strange  event  ;  no 
other  than  a  petition  to  the  King  from  the  clergy  in  Convocation 
assembled,  for  a  translation  of  the  Sciiptures  into  English.  '•'  This' 
good  motion,"  as  we  learn  from  Strype,f  was  made  and  warmly 
advocated  by  Cranmer.  But  it  was  not  carried  through  without  vio- 
lent opposition  from  the  Popish  party,  headed  by  Stephen  Gardiner, 
Bishop  of  Winchester,  who  declared,  that  "  all  the  heresies  and 
extravagant  opinions  then  in  Germany  and  thence  coming  over  to 
England,  sprang  from  the  free  use  of  the  Scriptures.  .  .  .  And  to 
offer  the  Bible  in  the  English  tongue  to  the  whole  nation  during  these 
distractions,  would  prove  the  greatest  snare  that  could  be.  "J 

The  next,  year,  Cranmer  made  a  vigorous  attempt  to  consummate 
this  movement,  by  securing  a  version  of  the  Scriptures  which  might 
be  circulated  with  the  advantage  of  the  King's  sanction.  Unwilling 
to  wait  till  a  new  translation  from  the  original  could  be  prepared,  and 
unable  to  use  Tyndale's.  which  was  prohibited  bylaw,  he  adopted  the 
following  plan,  as  related  by  Strype  in  his  life  :§ 

"  And  that  it  might  not  be  prohibited,  as  it  had  been,  upon  pretence  of  the 
ignorance  or  unfaithfulness  of  the  translators,  he  proceeded  in  this  method  : 
First,  he  began  with  the  translation  of  the  New  Testament — taking  an  old  Eng- 
lish translation  thereof,!  which  he  divided  into  nine  or  ten  parts,  causing  each 

*  Anderson,  vol.  i.,  p.  413. 

f  Memorials  of  Archbishop  Cranmer,  vol.  i.,  p.  34.  %  Burnet. 

.   §  Strype's  Cranmer,  vol.  i.,  p.  48. 

||  It  is  with  pleasure  that  we  recognize  in  this  "  old  English  translation,"  the 
venerable  version  of  Wickliffe.  Of  course  it  could  be  no  other.  The  awkward 
device  of  transcribing  one  so  well  known  as  Tyndale's — which  is  Anderson's 
supposition — must  immediately  have  betrayed  itself  ;  but  a  work  so  rare  as 
Wickliffe's,  newly  copied,  could  with  difficulty  be  identified  as  his,  and  might 
therefore  well  answer  Cranmer's  purpose. 


I48  ENGLISH   BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

part  to  be  written  at  large  in  a  paper  book,  and  then  to  be  sent  to  the  best  learned 
bishops  and  others,  to  the  intent  they  should  make  a  perfect  correction  thereof. 
And  when  they  had  done,  he  required  them  to  send  back  their  parts  so  corrected 
unto  him  at  Lambeth,  by  a  day  limited  for  that  purpose  ;  and  the  same  course, 
no  question,  he  took  with  the  Old  Testament.'' 

How  cordial  one  of  the  bishops  was  to  this  plan  is  seen  in  the  anec- 
dote told  by  Strype  of  Stokesly,  Bishop  of  London,  who  returned  his 
portion  uncorrected,  with  the  answer  :  "  I  marvel  what  my  Lord  of 
Canterbury  meaneth  that  thus  abuseth  the  people,  in  giving  them  lib- 
erty to  read  the  Scriptures,  which  doth  nothing  else  but  infect  them 
with  heresy.  I  have  bestowed  never  an  hour  on  my  portion,  nor 
never  will.  And  therefore  my  Lord  shall  have  his  book  again,  for  I 
will  never  be  guilty  of  bringing  the  simple  people  into  error." 

Of  the  secret  efforts  of  Gardiner  to  frustrate  this  undertaking,  as 
well  as  of  Anne  Boleyn's  agency  in  securing  a  decision  in  its  favor 
€rom  the  King  and  of  the  course  of  its  final  failure,  we  are  informed 
by  Archbishop  Parker.*  Being  at  this  time  chaplain  to  the  Queen,  f 
he  had  the  best  opportunity  for  understanding  the  whole  transaction. 

"  His  royal  Majestv,"  says  Parker,  "was  petitioned  by  the  whole  Synod,  to 
give  commandment  that  the  Holy  Scriptures  might  be  translated  into  the  Eng- 
lish tongue  ;  for  so  it  could  be  more  easily  discerned  by  all,  what  was  agreeable 
to  the  Divine  Law.  To  this,  Stephen  Gardiner — the  King's  most  secret  counsel- 
lor— made  resistance  as  covertly  as  possible.  But  through  the  grace  and  inter- 
cession of  our  most  illustrious  and  virtuous  mistress  the  Queen,  permission  was 
at  length  obtained  from  the  King,  that  the  Holy  Scriptures  should  be  printed 
and  deposited  in  every  church,  in  a  place  where  the  people  might  read  them  ; 
which  grant  of  the  King  did  not  go  into  effect,  because  this  most  illustrious 
Queen  soon  after  suffered  death." 

Nor  was  this  the  only  fruit  of  her  zeal  for  the  Scriptures  in  the 
language  of  the  people.  Before  the  close  of  this  same  year,  Cover- 
dale  had  completed  and  carried  through  the  press  a  translation  of  the 
whole  Bible,  which  owed  much  to  her  patronage,  and  was  dedicated 
to  her,  conjointly  with  the  King.  Of  her  connection  with  it  there  is 
sufficient  evidence  in  the  fact  that  her  sudden  fall  arrested  it  on  the 
eve  of  publication.  Of  this  version  a  more  particular  account  will 
be  given  in  the  proper  place. 

Besides  all  this  there  were  now  pending  negotiations  for  a  politico- 
religious  league  between  Henry  and  the  Protestant  princes  of  Ger- 
many, which  threatened  to  establish  the  Augsburg  Confession  as  the 
authoritative  standard  of  belief  in   England.      "  There   were  many 

*  De  Antiq.  Eccl.  Brit.,  p.  385,  (Harvard  Univ.  Library), 
f  Strype's  Life  and  Acts  of  Parker,  p.  7. 


THE   ROYAL    PATRONESS.  1 49 

conferences,"  says  Burnet,*  "  between  Foxe,  Bishop  of  Hereford, 
Doctor  Barnes,  and  some  others,  with  the  Lutheran  divines,  for 
accommodating  the  differences  between  them,  and  the  thing  was  in  a 
good  forwardness.     All  which  was  imputed  to  the  Queen." 

It  is  unnecessary  to  repeat  the  familiar  story  of  Anne  Boleyn's  sud- 
den and  tragic  fate,  or  to  enter  into  the  yet  unsettled  question  of  the 
truth  of  the  charges  on  which  she  was  tried  and  condemned.  But 
surely,  in  the  light  of  the  facts  above  narrated,  it  is  not  too  much  to 
claim  for  her  the  grateful  remembrance  of  all  who  love  the  truth  as 
one  who  fearlessly  used  her  exalted  position  for  the  advancement  of 
pure  religion  and  of  the  translation  of  the  Scriptures  into  the  com- 
mon tongue,  and  their  free  diffusion  among  the  people. 

*  Hist.  Ref.  p.  146. 


CHAPTER   XXI. 


MARTYRDOM    OF    TYNDALE. 


From  the  first  appearance  of  Tyndale's  work  on  the  king's  divorce, 
the  measures  already  long  on  foot  for  his  destruction  were  pursued 
with  fresh  energy.  Sir  John  Hackett,  as  we  have  seen,  had  failed 
in  the  attempt  to  procure  his  apprehension  by  direct  aid  from  the 
Court  of  Brussels.  The  new  scheme  was  to  decoy  him  into  England 
by  the  promise  of  a  safe-conduct  from  the  king.  Sir  Thomas  More 
was  then  at  the  height  of  power  ;  and  we  have  already  seen  his  opin- 
ion of  the  use  to  be  made  of  a  safe-conduct  in  the  case  of  heretics. 
Nor  were  the  other  high  officers  of  state  ashamed  to  lend  their  services 
to  the  nefarious  plot  ;  and  royal  envoys  were  charged,  in  connection 
with  the  management  of  international  policy,  to  be  on  the  watch  for 
William  Tyndale.  Thomas  Crumvvell  was  chief  director  in  the:  business, 
and  Stephen  Vaughan,  one  of  his  proteges,  now  Envoy  and  King's 
merchant  in  place  of  Hackett,  his  principal  agent.  The  importance 
attached  to  this  part  of  Vaughan's  mission  may  be  judged  of  by  the 
following  letter  on  the  subject,  addressed  by  him  to  the  king,  January 
26th,  1530  : 

"  Most  excelent  Prince,  and  my  most  redoubted  Sovereign,  mine  humble  ob- 
servation due  unto  your  Majesty — My  mind  continually  laboring  and  thirsting, 
most  dread  and  redoubtable  Sovereign,  with  exceeding  'desire  to  attain  the 
knowledge  of  such  things  as  your  Majesty  commanded  me  to  learn  and  practice 
in  these  parts  and  thereof  advertise  you,  from  time  to  time,  as  the  case  should 
require.  And  being  often  dismayed  with  the  regard  of  so  many  mischances,  as 
always  obviate  and  meet  with  my  labors  and  policies,  whereby  the  same  (after 
great  hope  had,  to  do  something  acceptable  unto  your  Highness'  pleasure)  turn 
suddenly  to  become  frustrate,  and  of  none  effect,  bringing  me,  doubtless,  into 
right  great  sorrow  and  inquietude,  considering  that.  Wherefore,  lately,  I  have 
written  three  sundry  letters  unto  Willyam  Tyndall,  and  the  same  sent,  for  the 
more  surety,  to  three  sundry  places — to  Frankfort,  Hamburg,  and  Marleborough 
(i.e.  Marburgh)  ;  I  then  not  being  assured  in  which  of  the  same  he  was.  I  had 
very  good  hope,  after  I  heard  say  in  England,  that  he  would,  upon  the  promise 
of  your  Majesty,  and  of  your  most  gracious  safe-conduct,  be  content  to  repair 
and  come  into  England,  that  I  should,  partly  therewith,  and  partly  with  such 
other  persuasions  as  I  then  devised  in  my  said  letters,  and,  finally,  with  a  pro- 
mise which  I  made  him — that  whatsoever  surety  he  would  reasonably  desire,  for 
his  safe  coming  in  and  going  out  of  your  realm,  my  friends  should  labor  to  hav» 
the  same  granted  by  your  Majesty — (but)  that  now,  the  bruit  and  fame  of  suci. 
things  (as  since  my  writing  to  him)  hath  chanced  within  your  realm,  should  prcj 


MARTYRDOM    OF   TYNDALE.  15  I 

voke  the  man,  not  only  to  be  minded  to  the  contrary  of  that  whereunto  I 
thought,  without  difficulty,  to  have  easily  brought  him,  but  also  to  suspect  my 
persuasions  to  be  made  to  his  more  peril  and  danger  ;  than,  as  I  think,  if  he 
were  verily  persuaded  and  placed  before  you,  (your  most  gracious  benignity,  arid 
piteous  regard  natural,  and  custom  always  had,  toward  your  humble  subjects 
considered,  and  specially  to  those  which,  (ac)knowledging  their  offences,  shall 
humbly  require  your  most  gracious  pardon),  he  should  ever  have  need  to  doubt 
or  fear.  Like  as  your  Majesty  as  well  by  his  letter,  written  with  his  own  hand, 
sent  to  me  for  answer  of  my  said  letters  ;  as  also  by  the  copy  of  another  letter  of 
his,  answering  some  other  person,  whom  your  Majesty  perhaps  had  commanded 
to  persuade  by  like  means  may  plain  apperceive — which  letters,  like  as  together 
I  received  from  the  party,  so  send  I,  herewith  inclosed  to  your  Highness. 

"  And  whereas  I  lately  apperceived,  by  certain  letters  directed  to  me  from  Mr. 
Fitzwilliam,  Treasurer  of  your  household,  that  I  should  endeavor  myself,  by  all 
the  ways  and  means  I  could  study  and  devise,  to  obtain  you  a  copy  of  the  book, 
which  I  wrote  was  finished,  by  Tyndall,  answering  to  a  book  put  forth  in  the 
English  tongue  by  my  Lord  Chancellor,  and  the  same  should  send  to  your 
Majesty,  with  all  celerity — I  have  undoubtedly  so  done  and  did,  before  the  re- 
ceipt thereof.  -Howbeit,  I  neither  can  get  any  of  them,  nor,  as  yet,  (is  it)  come 
to  my  knowledge  that  any  of  them  should  be  put  forth  ;  but  being  put  forth,  I 
shall  then  not  fail,  with  all  celerity,  to  send  one  unto  your  Highness." 


In  a  note  to  Crumwell,  to  whom  this  letter  was  consigned,  he  adds  : 
"  It  is  unlikely  to  get  Tyndale  into  England,  when  he  daily  heareth  so 
many  things  from  thence  which  feareth  him.  .  .  .  The  man  is  of 
greater  knowledge  than  the  King's  highness  doth  take  him  for,  which 
well  appeareth  by  his  works.     Would  God  he  were  in  England  !" 

On  the  17th  of  April  he  had,  most  unexpectedly,  an  interview  with 
Tyndale  ;  of  which,  the  very  next  day,  he  transmitted  the  following 
account  in  a  letter  to  the  King  : 

"  The  day  before  the  date  hereof,  (17th  of  April,)  I  spake  with  Tyndale  with- 
out the  town  of  Antwerp  ;  and  by  this  means.  He  sent  a  certain  person  to  seek 
me,  whom  he  had  advised  to  say,  that  a  certain  friend  of  mine,  unknown  to  the 
messenger,  was  very  desirous  to  speak  Wjith  me  ;  praying  me  to  take  pains  to  go 
unto  him,  to  such  places  as  he  should  bring  me.  Then  I  (said)  to  the  messenger 
— '  What  is  your  friend,  and  where  is  he?'  '  His  name  I  know  not,'  said  he, 
'  but  if  it  be  your  pleasure  to  go  where  he  is,  I  will  be  glad  thither  to  bring  you.' 
Thus  doubtful  what  this  matter  meant,  I  concluded  to  go  with  him,  and  followed 
him,  till  he  brought  me  without  the  gate,  of  Antwerp,  into  a  field  lying  nigh  unto 
the  same,  where  was  abiding  me  this  said  Tyndale. 

"  At  our  meeting — '  Do  you  not  know  me  ?'  said  this  Tyndale.  '  I  do  not  well 
remember  you,'  said  I  to  him.  '  My  name,'  said  he,  '  is  Tyndale.'  '  But,  Tyn- 
dale,' said  I,  '  fortunate  be  our  meeting.'  Then  Tyndale — '  Sir,  I  have  been 
exceedingly  desirous  to  speak  with  you.'  '  And  I  with  you  ;  what  is  your 
mind?'  '  Sir,'  said  he,  '  I  am  informed  that  the  King's  Grace  taketh  great  dis- 
pleasure with  me,  for  putting  forth  of  certain  books,  which  I  lately  made  in  these 


152  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

parts  ;  but  specially  for  the  book  named  "  The  Practice  of  Prelates,"*  whereof  I 
have  no  little  marvel — considering  that  in  it  I  did  but  warn  his  Grace  of  the  sub- 
tle demeanor  of  the  clergy  of  his  realm,  toward  his  peison  ;  and  of  the  shame- 
ful abusions  by  them  practised,  not  a  little  threatening  the  displeasure  of  his 
Grace,  and  weal  of  his  realm  :  in  which  doing,  I  showed  and  declared  the  heart 
of  a  true  subject,  which  sought  the  safe  guard  of  his  royal  person,  and  weal  of 
his  Commons  :  to  the  intent  that  his  Grace  thereof  warned,  might,  in  due  time, 
prepare  his  remedies  against  their  subtle  dreams.  If  for  my  pains  therein  taken 
— if  for  my  poverty — if  for  mine  exile  out  of  mine  natural  country  and  bitter 
absence  from  my  friends— if  for  my  hunger,  my  thirst,  my  cold,  the  great  danger 
wherewith  I  am  everywhere  compassed  ;  and  finally,  if  for  innumerable  other 
hard  and  sharp  fightings  which  I  endure,  not  yet  feeling  of  their  asperity,  by 
reason  (that)  I  hoped  with  my  labors  to  do  honor  to  God,  true  service  to  my 
Prince,  and  pleasure  to  his  Commons  ; — how  is  it  that  his  Grace,  this  consider- 
ing, may  either  by  himself  think,  or  by  the  persuasions  of  others,  be  thought  to 
think,  that  in  this  doing  I  should  not  show  a  pure  mind,  a  true  and  incorrupt 
zeal,  and  affection  to  his  Grace?  Was  there  in  me  any  such  mind,  when  I 
warned  his  Grace  to  beware  of  his  Cardinal,  whose  iniquity  he  shortly  after 
proved,  according  to  my  writing  ?     Doth  this  deserve  hatred  ? 

"  Again,  may  his  Grace,  being  a  Christian  prince,  be  so  unkind  to  God,  which 
hath  commanded  his  Word  to  be  spread  throughout  the  world,  to  give  more  faith 
to  wicked  persuasions  of  men,  which  presuming  above  God's  wisdom,  and  con- 
trary to  that  which  Christ  expressly  commandeth  in  his  Testament,  dare  say 
that  it  is  not  lawful  for  the  people  to  have  the  same  in  a  tongue  that  they  under- 
stand ;  because  the  purity  thereof  should  open  men's  eyes  to  see  their  wicked- 
ness ?  Is  there  more  danger  in  the  King's  subjects,  than  in  the  subjects  of  all 
other  Princes,  which,  in  every  of  their  tongues  have  the  same,  under  privilege  of 
their  sufferance  ?  As  I  now  am,  very  death  were  more  pleasant  to  me  than  life, 
considering  man's  nature  to  be  such  as  can  bear  no  truth.' 

"  Thus,  after  a  long  communication  had  between  us,  for  my  part  making  answer 
as  my  poor  wit  would  serve  me,  which  was  too  long  to  write  ;  I  assayed  him 
with  gentle  persuasions,  to  know  whether  he  would  come  into  England  ;  ascer- 
taining him  that  means  should  be  made,  if  he  (only)  thereto  were  minded  without 
his  peril  or  danger,  that  he  might  do  so  :  And  that  what  surety  he  would  devise 
for  the  same  purpose,  should,  by  labor  of  friends,  be  obtained  of  your  Majesty. 
But  to  this  he  answered — that  he  neither  would,  nor  durst,  come  into  England, 
albeit  your  Grace  would  promise  him  never  so  much  surety  ;  fearing  lest,  as  he 
hath  before  written,  your  promise  made,' should  shortly  be  broken  by  the  persua- 
sion of  the  clergy  ;  which  would  affirm  that  promise  made  with  heretics  ought 
not  to  be  kept. 

"  After  this  he  told  me  how  he  had  finished  a  work  against  my  Lord  Chancel- 
lor's book,  and  would  not  put  it  in  print  till  such  time  as  your  Grace  had  seen  it  ; 
because  he  perceiveth  your  displeasure  towards  him  for  hasty  putting  forth  of  his 
other  works,  and  because  it  should  appear  that  he  is  not  of  so  obstinate  mind  as 
he  thinks  he  is  reported  unto  your  Grace.  This  is  the  substance  of  his  commu- 
nications had  with  me,  which,  as  he  spake,  I  have  written  to  your  Grace  word  for 

*  The  one  in  which  Tyndale  condemned  Henry's  divorce  from  Queen  Kathe- 
rinc. — T.  J.  C. 


MARTYRDOM    OF   TYNDALE.  I 53 

word,  as  near  as  I  could  by  any  possible  means  bring  to  remembrance.  My 
trust,  therefore,  is  that  your  Grace  will  not  but  take  my  labors  in  the  best  part. 
I  thought  necessary  to  be  written  to  your  Grace. 

"  After  these  words,  he  then,  being  something  fearful  of  me  lest  I  would  have 
pursued  him,  and  drawing  also  towards  night,  he  took  his  leave  of  me,  and  de- 
parted from  the  town,  and  I  toward  the  town — saying,  '  I  should  shortly,  perad- 
venture,  see  him  again,  or  if  not,  hear  from  him.'  Howbeit,  I  suppose  he  after- 
ward returned  to  the  town  by  another  way,  for  there  is  no  likelihood  that  he 
should  lodge  without  the  town.  Hasty  to  pursue  him  I  was  not,  because  I  had 
some  likelihood  to  speak  shortly  again  with  him  ;  and  in  pursuing  him  I  might 
perchance  have  failed  of  my  purpose,  and  put  myself  in  danger." 

Vaughan,  with  all  his  courtier-like  subserviency,  was  evidently  quite 
too  good  a  man  for  so  base  an  errand.  But  this  cautious  attempt  to 
soften  the  king's  feelings  was  wholly  unavailing.  A  very  rough  and 
severe  reply  from  Crumwell,  who  was  extremely  vexed  at  the  impru- 
dence of  his  subordinate,  conveyed  the  expression  of  the  high  royal 
displeasure  at  the  tone  of  the  above  letter.  Henry  was,  apparently, 
much  alarmed  lest  his  envoy,  while  attempting  to  execute  his  wishes, 
should  be  corrupted  by  this  dangerous  man.  He  strictly  forbade, 
therefore,  any  further  efforts  to  persuade  Tyndale  to  come  into  Eng- 
land ;  professing  that  he  was  "  very  joyous  to  have  his  realm  destitute 
of  a  person  so  malicious,  perverse,  uncharitable,  and  indurate  ";  who 
if  once  in  England,  "  would,  by  all  likelihood,  shortly  (which  God 
defend),  do  as  much  as  in  him  were  to  infect  and  corrupt  the  whole 
realm,  to  the  great  inquietation  and  hurt  of  the  commonwealth  of  the 
same. ' ' 

The  Secretary  then  adds  his  own  earnest  remonstrance,  exhorting 
Vaughan  by  all  his  hopes  of  court  favor  and  promotion,  to  show  in  his 
future  letters  to  the  King,  that  he  bore  "  no  manner  of  love,  favor,  or 
affection  to  the  said  Tyndale,  nor  his  works,  in  any  manner  of  ways, 
but  that  he  utterly  contemned  and  abhorred  the  same." 

To  this,  however,  was  subjoined  a  postscript,  the  result,  probably, 
of  a  subsequent  communication  from  his  Majesty,  suggesting  that  hein- 
ous as  were  the  offences  of  Tyndale,  if  he  would  but  abjure  his  errors, 
he  might  be  permitted  to  return  to  England  with  some  good  hope  of 
the  King's  mercy.  On  this  hint  Vaughan  ventured  to  seek  another 
interview  with  him,  which  he  reports  as  follows  : 

"  I  have  again  been  in  hand  to  persuade  Tyndale  ;  and  to  draw  him  the  rather 
to  favor  my  persuasions,  and  not  to  think  the  same  feigned,  I  showed  him  a 
clause  contained  in  Master  CrumweU's  letter,  containing  these  words  following — 
'  And  notwithstanding  other  the  premises  in  this  my  letter  contained,  if  it  were 
possible,  by  good  and  wholesome  exhortation,  to  reconcile  and  convert  the  said 
Tyndale  from  the  train  and  affection  which  he  now  is  in,  and  to  excerpte  and  take 


154  ENGLISH   BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

away  the  opinions  sorely  rooted  in  him,  I   doubt  not  but  the   King's  Highness 
would  be  much  joyous  of  his  conversion  and  amendment  ;  and  so,  being  con- 
verted, if  then  he  would  return   into  his  realm,  undoubtedly  the  King's  Royal 
Majesty  is  so  inclined   to   mercy,  pity,  and  compassion,  that  he   refuseth  none 
which  he  seeth  submit  themselves  to  the  obedience  and  good  order  of  the  world.' 
In  these  words  I  thought  to  be  such  sweetness  and  virtue,  as  were  able  to  pierce 
the  hardest  heart  of  the  world  :  and  as  I  thought  so  it  came  to  pass.     For  after 
sight  thereof,  I  perceived  the  man  to  be  exceedingly  altered,  and  to  take  the  same 
very  near  unto  his  heart,  in   such   wise   that  water  stood  in  his  eyes  ;  and   he 
answered,  '  What  gracious  words  are  these  !'   '  I  assure  you,'  said  he,  '  if  it  would 
stand  with  the  King's  most  gracious  pleasure  to  grant  only  a  bare  text  of  the 
Scripture  to  be  put  forth  among  his  people,  like  as  is  put  forth  among  the  sub- 
jects of  the  Emperor  in  these  parts,  and  of  other  Christian  princes — be  it  of  the 
translation  of  what  person  soever  shall  please  his  Majesty,  I  shall  immediately 
make  faithful  promise  never  to  write  more,  nor  abide  two  days  in  these  parts  after 
the  same  ;  but  immediately  repair  into  his  realm,  and  there  most  humbiy  submit 
myself  at  the  feet  of  his  Royal  Majesty,  offering  my  body,  to  suffer  what  pain  or 
torture,  yea,  what  death  his  Grace  will,  so  that  this  be  obtained.     And  till  that 
time,  I  will  abide  the  asperity  of  all  chances,  whatsoever  shall  come,  and  endure 
my  life  in  as  much  pains  as  it  is  able  to  bear  and  suffer.     And  as  concerning  my 
reconciliation,  his  Grace  may  be  assured — that  whatsoever  I  have  said  or  written, 
in  all  my  life,  against  the  honor  of  God's  Word,  and  (if)  so  proved  ;  the  same 
shall  I,  before  his  Majesty  and  all  the  world  utterly  renounce  and  forsake — and 
with  most  humble  and  meek  mind  embrace  the  truth,  abhorring  all  error  soever — 
at  the  most  gracious  and  benign  request  of  his  Royal  Majesty,  of  whose  wisdom, 
prudence,  and  learning  I  hear  so  great  praise  and  commendation  than  of  any 
creature  living  !     But  if  those  things  which  I  have  written  be  true  and  stand  with 
God's  word,  why  should  his  Majesty,  having  so  excellent  a  gift  of  knowledge  in 
the  Scriptures,  move  me  to  do  anything  against  my  conscience  ?'  —with  many 
other  words,  which  were  too  long  to  write." 

For  nearly  a  year  nothing  more  is  heard  on  this  topic  from  Vaughan. 
But,  from  a  letter  to  Lord  Cromwell  in  1531,  it  appears  that  what  he 
had  already  done  had  effected  nothing  but  to  prejudice  his  own  inter- 
ests at  court,  and  that  Sir  Thomas  More  was  as  busy  in  the  measures 
against  Tyndale,  as  in  the  persecutions  at  home. 

A  subsequent  letter  places  before  us  in  a  vivid  light  the  conflict  of 
opinion  then  agitating  England,  the  mean  and  cruel  policy  employed 
to  bring  it  to  an  end,  and  the  triumphant  spread  of  truth  against  all 
opposition.  The  noble  sentiments  of  these  extracts  place  Stephen 
Vaughan  far  above  the  greatest  of  his  employers. 

"If  Constantyne*  have  accused  me  to  be  of  the  Lutheran  sect,  a  fautor  and 
setter-forth  of  erroneeous  and  suspected  works,  I  do  nut  thereat  marvel,  for  two 

*  Constantine  was  accused  as  a  heretic,  and  as  engaged  in  the  transportation 
of  books,  in  1528.  That  year  he  fled  to  Brabant,  where  he  supported  himself  by 
his  profession,  having  been  bred  a  surgeon.      In  the  year  1531 ,  having  ventured 


MARTYRDOM    OF   TYNDALE.  1 55 

causes  specially.  One  is,  for  that  my  Lord  Chancellor,  in  his  examination  of  the 
said  George  and  of  all  other  men  (as  I  am  credibly  informed),  being  brought  be- 
fore him  for  cases  of  heresy,  doth  deeply  inquire  to  know  what  may  be  said  of 
me  ;  and  in  the  examination  thereof  showeth  evident  and  clear  desire  in  his 
countenance  and  behavior,  to  hear  something  of  me  whereby  an  occasion  of  evil 
might  be  fastened  against  me  ;  which,  no  doubt,  shall  soon  be  espied  in  the 
patient  whom  he  examineth — who  perceiving  his  desire  in  that  behalf,  and  trust- 
ing, by  accusing  of  me,  to  escape  and  avoid  his  present  danger,  of  pure  frailty 
and  weakness,  spareth  not  to  accuse  the  innocent.  The  other  is,  for  that  George, 
besides  the  imminent  peril  and  danger  in  which  he  was,  abiding  prisoner  in  my 
Lord's  house,  was  vehemently  stirred  and  provoked.  What  with  the  remem- 
brance of  his  poor  wife  remaining  here,  desperate,  bewashed  with  continual  tears, 
and  pinched  with  hourly  sorrow,  sighs,  and  mourning,  and  the  sharp  and  bitter 
threatenings  of  his  poor  (state)  and  condition,  likely  to  be  brought  unto  an  ex- 
treme danger  of  poverty  ;  and  more  hard  than  the  first,  by  the  excess  of  his 
misery,  to  accuse  whom  they  had  longed  for,  rather  than  to  be  tied  by  the  leg 
with  a  cold  and  heavy  iron  like  a  beast — as  appeared  by  the  shift  he  made  to 
undo  the  same  and  escape  such  torture  and  punishments.  Will  not  these  perils, 
fears,  punishments,  make  a  son  forget  the  father  which  begat  him  ?  And  the 
mother  that  bear  him,  and  fed  him  with  her  breasts  ?  If  they  will,  who  should 
(wonder)  though  he  would  accuse  me,  a  thousand  times  less  dear  to  him  than 
father  or  mother,  to  rid  him  out  of  the  same  ?  , 

"  Would  God  it  might  please  the  King's  Majesty  to  look  into  these  kinds  of 
punishments  ;  which  in  my  poor  opinion,  threateneth  more  hurt  to  his  realm  than 
those  that  be  his  ministers  to  execute  the  same  tortures  and  punishments  do  think 
or  conjecture  :  and  by  this  reason  only — It  shall  (will)  constrain  his  subjects  in 
great  number  to  forsake  his  realm,  and  to  inhabit  strange  regions  and  countries, 
where  they  will  practise  not  a  little  hurt  to  the  same.  Yea,  and  whereas  they 
(the  King's  ministers)  think  that  tortures,  punishments  and  death,  will  be  a  mean 
to  rid  the  realm  of  erroneous  opinions,  and  bring  men  in  such  fear  that  they  will 
not  once  be  so  hardy  to  speak  or  look,  be  you  assured,  and  let  the  King's  Grace 
be  therefore  advertised  at  my  mouth,  that  his  highness  (shall)  will  duly  prove 
that  in  the  end  it  will  cause  the  sect  to  wax  greater,  and  those  errors  to  be  more 
plenteously  sowed  in  his  realm  than  ever  afore.  For  who  have  so  mightily  sowed 
those  errors  as  those  persons  which,  for  fear  of  tortures  and  death,  have  fled  his 
realm  ?  Will  they  not,  by  driving  men  out  of  his  realm,  make  the  rownt  (irrup- 
tion) and  company  greater  in  strange  countries,  and  will  not  many  do  more  than 
one  or  two  ?  Will  not  four  write  where  one  wrote  afore  ?  Counsel  you  the 
King's  Highness,  as  his  true  subject,  to  look  upon  this  matter,  and  no  more  to 
trust  to  other  men's  policies,  which  threateneth,  in  mine  opinion,  the  weal  of  his 
realm  ;  and  let  me  no  longer  be  blamed  nor  suspected  for  my  true  saying. 

"  That  I  write  I  know  to  be  true  ;  and  daily  do  see  experience  of  that  I  now 
write,  which,  between  you  and  me,  I  have  often  said  and  written,  though  perad- 
venture  you  have  little  regarded  it.  But  tarry  a  while  and  you  will  be  learned  by 
experience.      I  see  it  begun  already. 

into  England,  he  fell  into  the  hands  of  Sir  Thomas  More,  who  subjected  him  to 
a  harsh  imprisonment  in  his  own  mansion  ;  using  his  leisure  to  extract  from  the 
poor  man,  by  alternate  threats  and  promises,  information  against  his  brethren 
abroad  and  all  who  were  suspected  of  favoring  them. 


I56  ENGLISH    BIBLE    TRANSLATION. 

"To  some  men  it  will  seem,  by  this  my  manner  of  writing,  that  I  being  (as 
they  suppose,  and  as  I  have  been  falsely  accused  to  be)  one  of  the  sect,  do  write 
in  this  manner  because  I  would  that  both  I  and  the  same  sect  should  be  suffered 
without  punishment.  Nay  truly — But  rather  I  would  that  an  evil  doer  should  be 
charitably  punished,  and  in  such  manner  as  he  might  thereby  be  won  with  other, 
than  lost  with  a  great  many.  And  let  his  Majesty  be  further  assured,  that  he  will 
with  no  policy  nor  with  no  threatenings  of  tortures  and  punishments  take  away 
the  opinions  of  his  people  till  his  Grace  shall  fatherly  and  lovingly  reform  the 
clergy  of  his  realm.  For  there  springeth  the  opinion.  From  thence  riseth  the 
grudge  of  his  people.  Out  of  that  men  take  and  find  occasions  to  complain.  If 
I  say  truth  let  it  be  for  such  received.  If  otherwise,  I  protest,  before  God  and 
the  world,  that  whatsoever  I  here  write,  I  mean  therein  nothing  but  honor,  glory 
and  surety  of  my  only  Prince  and  sovereign,  and  the  public  weal  of  his  realm." 

The  next  year  discovers  a  new  bailiff  in  pursuit  of  Tyndale,  Sir 
Thomas  Elyot,  Ambassador  from  Henry  to  the  Emperor.  The  ran- 
corous hatred  of  the  King  and  the  straits  to  which  the  reformer  was 
reduced  by  his  persecution,  appear  from  the  following  reference  to  it  in 
a  letter  addressed  March  14th,  1532,  to  the  Duke  of  Norfolk,  then 
Prime  Minister  of  England  : 

"  My  duty  remembered,  with  most  humble  thanks  unto  your  Grace,  that  it 
pleased  you  so  benevolently  to  remember  me  unto  the  King's  Highness,  concern- 
ing my  return  into  England.  Albeit  the  King  willeth  me,  by  his  Grace's  letters, 
to  remain  at  Brussels  some  space  of  time  for  the  apprehension  of  Tyndale,  which 
somewhat  minisheth  my  hope  of  soon  return  ;  considering  that  like  as  he  is  in 
wit  moveable,  semblably  so  is  his  person  uncertain  to  come  by.  And,  as  far  as  I 
can  perceive,  hearing  of  the  King's  diligence  in  the  apprehension  of  him,  he 
withdraweth  him  into  such  places  where  he  thinketh  to  be  farthest  out  of  danger. 
In  me  there  shall  lack  none  endeavor.  Finally,  as  I  am  all  the  King's  except  my 
soul,  so  shall  I  endure  all  that  shall  be  his  pleasure,  employing  my  poor  life  glad- 
ly in  that  which  may  be  to  his  honor  or  wealth  of  his  realm." 

But  this  attempt  was  as  unsuccessful  as  the  former.  The  perse- 
cuted exile  was  not  without  friends  to  warn  him  of  approaching  dan- 
ger, and  to  afford  him  secure  refuge  in  the  hour  of  need.  By  many 
members  of  that  honorable  and  powerful  body,  the  company  of  Eng- 
lish Merchant  Adventurers,  he  was  venerated  as  an  apostle.  As  we 
have  seen  in  the  case  of  Vaughan,  it  was  impossible  for  a  man  of  any 
generosity  of  soul  to  come,  even  briefly,  into  contact  with  Tyndale 
without  a  deep  impression  of  his  exalted  moral  worth  ;  and  we  need 
not  wonder  that  with  those  who  had  enjoyed  the  privilege  of  daily  in- 
tercourse with  him  for  years  this  feeling  should  rise  into  an  affec- 
tionate enthusiasm  which  would  risk  everything  to  save  him.  A 
beautiful  picture  it  is  which  Eoxe  gives  of  his  course  of  life  in  Ant- 
werp and  of  his  relations  to  his  noble  countrymen  : 


MARTYRDOM    OF   TYNDALE.  1 57 

"  First,  he  was  a  man  very  frugal,  and  spare  of  body,  a  great  student  and  earn- 
est laborer  in  the  setting  forth  of  the  Scriptures  of  God.  He  reserved  or  hallowed 
to  himself  two  days  in  the  week,  which  he  named  his  pastime,  Monday  and  Sat- 
urday. On  Monday  he  visited  all  such  poor  men  and  women  as  were  fled  out  of 
England,  by  reason  of  persecution,  into  Antwerp,  and  these,  once  well  under- 
standing their  good  exercises  and  qualities,  he  did  very  liberally  comfort  and  re- 
lieve ;  and  in  like  manner  provided  for  the  sick  and  diseased  persons.  On  the 
Saturday  he  walked  round  about  the  town,  seeking  every  corner  and  hole  where 
he  suspected  any  poor  person  to  dwell,  and  where  he  found  any  to  be  well  occu- 
pied and  yet  over-burdened  with  children,  or  else  were  aged  and  weak,  those  also 
he  plentifully  relieved.  And  thus  he  spent  his  two  days  of  pastime,  as  he  called 
them.  And  truly  his  alms  were  very  large,  and  so  they  might  well  be  ;  for  his 
exhibition  that  he  had  yearly  of  the  English  merchants  at  Antwerp,  when  living 
there,  was  considerable,  and  that  for  the  most  part  he  bestowed  upon  the  poor. 
The  rest  of  the  days  of  the  week  he  gave  wholly  to  his  book,  wherein  he  most  dili- 
gently travailed.  When  the  Sunday  came,  then  went  he  to  some  one  merchant's 
chamber  or  other,  whither  came  many  other  merchants,  and  unto  them  would  he 
read  some  one  parcel  of  Scripture  ;  the  which  proceeded  so  fruitfully,  sweetly, 
and  gently  from  him,  much  like  to  the  writing  of  John  the  Evangelist,  that  it  was 
a  heavenly  comfort  and  joy  to  the  audience  to  hear  him  read  the  Scripture  :  like- 
wise after  dinner,  he  spent  an  hour  in  the  same  manner.  He  was  a  man  without 
any  spot  or  blemish  of  rancor  or  malice,  full  of  mercy  and  compassion,  so  that  no 
man  living  was  able  to  reprove  him  of  any  sin  or  crime  ;  although  his  righteous- 
ness and  justification  depended  not  thereupon  before  God  ;  but  only  upon  the 
blood  of  Christ  and  his  faith  upon  the  same." 

But  toward  the  close  of  1534,  or  the  beginning  of  the  following  year, 
1  new  plot  was  devised  against  his  life,  which  ultimately  proved  suc- 
cessful. It  is  a  noticeable  fact  that  in  the  two  previous  attempts, 
when  Sir  Thomas  More  was  all  powerful  in  the  royal  counsels,  the 
King  appears  as  chief  mover  ;  whereas  his  name  is  not  mentioned  in 
connection  with  the  present  one.  He  may  not,  indeed,  have  relin- 
quished his  own  efforts  for  the  same  object  ;  but  this  seems  to  have 
been  an  independent  plan,  contrived  by  the  leaders  of  the  popish  party 
against  their  most  dreaded  opponent.  Probably  they  were  deterred 
from  seeking  Henry's  aid  by  a  fear  of  the  influence  of  Anne  Boleyn. 
Whatever  the  cause,  the  fact  is  certain,  that  they  attempted  to  effect 
their  object,  not  through  him,  but  through  his  mortal  enemy  the  Em- 
peror, who,  as  the  relative  and  protector  of  Katherine,  was  also  the 
patron  of  the  disaffected  English  clergy. 

The  emissaries  now  despatched  on  this  business  were  better  chosen 
than  those  formerly  employed  by  the  King  ;  being  merely  hired  villains, 
with  no  character  to  lose  and  no  political  duties  to  divert  them  from 
their  errand.  There  were  two  of  them  ;  the  one  a  young  man  of 
prepossessing  exterior,  but  a  needy  and  profligate  adventurer,  named 
Henry  Phillips.      He  was  to  play  the  part  of  gentleman.     The  other, 


158  ENGLISH   BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

Gabriel  Donne,  a  monk  of  Stratford  Abbey,  was  to  pass  as  his  ser- 
vant, but  was,  no  doubt,  the  real  director  of  the  enterprise.  They 
were  plentifully  supplied  by  their  employers  with  money  wherewith  to 
keep  up  appearances,  and  to  apply  bribery  wherever  needful. 
Donne  first  went  to  Louvain,  probably  to  consult  with  that  enlightened 
Faculty  of  Theology  which  had  once  been  so  shocked  at  the  impiety 
of  Erasmus,  and  had  driven  Dorpiusfrom  the  professor's  chair.  Here 
he  was  joined  by  Philips,  and  both  proceeded  to  x\ntwerp. 

Tyndale  was  at  that  time  residing  with  an  English  merchant  of  that 
city,  by  the  name  of  Pointz  ;  a  gentleman  of  ancient  Norman  family, 
and  of  high  connections  in  his  native  land  ;  but  far  more  honorably 
distinguished  as  the  lover  of  the  Scriptures  and  the  friend  of  Tyndale. 
As  Tyndale's  company  was  in  great  request  with  the  other  English 
merchants,  and  he  was  often  invited  to  their  tables,  where  also  Henry 
Phillips,  as  a  rich  fellow-countryman,  found  easy  access,  the  conspira- 
tor and  his  victim  soon  met.  The  engaging  manners  and  professed 
friendship  of  the  young  man  soon  won  the  confidence  of  the  unsus- 
pecting reformer.  Not  only  did  he  invite  him  repeatedly  to  the 
mansion  of  his  host,  but  even  induced  M.  Pointz  to  receive  him  as  a 
lodger.  The  intimate  daily  intercourse  thus  established  was  diligently 
used  by  the  base  man  to  become  acquainted  with  everything  in  Tyn- 
dale's life  and  writings  which  could  subserve  the  purpose  of  his  em- 
ployers. 

Having  gained  all  necessary  information,  Phillips  now  began  cau- 
tiously to  take  steps  for  bringing  the  matter  to  an  end.  It  was  his 
design  at  first,  as  is  supposed,  to  effect  the  object  through  the  Antwerp 
city  government.  In  this  view  he  sounded  M.  Pointz,  as  he  probably 
did  others  of  his  countrymen,  to  ascertain  if  he  could  be  bribed  into 
concurrence  with  such  a  measure.  Such  was  the  interpretation  after- 
ward given  to  mysterious  hints  from  Phillips,  which  at  the  time 
awakened  no  suspicion.  For  the  idea  that  any  one  could  dream  of 
bribing  Thomas  Pointz  to  betray  his  friend  never  entered  the  thoughts 
of  the  noble  merchant  till  events  brought  their  own  explanation. 

Failing  in  this  plan  he  made  no  application  to  the  Antwerp  magis- 
tracy, but  proceeded  to  the  court  of  Brussels,  about  thirty  miles  dis- 
tant. As  King  Henry,  on  account  of  his  quarrel  with  the  Emperor, 
had  no  ambassador  at  Brussels,  Phillips  had  free  scope  ;  and  by  con- 
necting his  designs  against  Tyndale  with  treasonable  propositions 
against  his  own  sovereign,  he  succeeded  in  obtaining  a  favorable  hear- 
ing. On  his  return  to  Antwerp,  the  Emperor's  attorney  accompanied 
him  for  the  purpose  of  apprehending  Tyndale.  Yet  even  the  imperial 
officials  dared  not  seize  an  Englishman  openly  in  this  free  city,  where 


MARTYRDOM    OF   TYNDALE.  1 59 

English  influence  was  so  powerful,  and  several  days  passed  by  without 
action.  But  at  length  Pointz  left  home  to  be  absent  a  month  or  six 
weeks  at  the  great  annual  fair  at  Barrow,  and  the  favorable  moment 
was  now  judged  to  have  come.  The  remainder  of  the  story  is  best 
told  in  the  words  of  Foxe. 

"  In  the  time  of  his  absence  Henry  Phillips  came  again  to  Antwerp,  to  the 
house  of  Pointz,  and  coming  in,  spake  with  his  wife,  asking  her  for  Master 
Tyndale,  and  whether  he  would  dine  there  with  him  ;  saying — '  what  good  meat 
shall  we  have  ?'  She  answered,  '  such  as  the  market  will  give.'  Then  went  he 
forth  again,  as  it  was  thought,  to  provide,  and  set  the  officers  whom  he  brought 
with  him  from  Brussels,  in  the  street,  and  about  the  door.  Then  about  noon  he 
came  again,  and  went  to  Master  Tyndale,  and  desired  him  to  lend  him  forty 
shillings  ;  'for,'  said  he,  '  I  lost  my  purse  this  morning,  coming  over  at  the 
passage,  between  this  and  Mechlin.'  So  Tyndale  took  him  forty  shillings,  which 
was  easy  to  be  had  of  him,  if  he  had  it  ;  for  in  the  wily  subtilties  of  this  world 
he  was  simple  and  inexpert. 

"  Then  said  Phillips,  '  Master  Tyndale,  you  shall  be  my  guest  here  this  day. 
'  No,'  said  Tyndale,  '  I  go  forth  this  day  to  dinner,  and  you  shall  go  with  me,  and 
be  my  guest,  where  you  shall  be  welcome.'  So  when  it  was  dinner  time,  Master 
Tyndale  went  forth  with  Phillips,  and  at  the  going  forth  of  Pointz's  house  was 
a  long,  narrow  entry,  so  that  two  could  not  go  in  a  front.  Tyndale  would  have 
put  Phillips  before  him,  but  Phillips  would  in  no  wise,  for  that  he  pretended  to 
show  great  humanity,  (courtesy).  So  Master  Tyndale,  being  a  man  of  no  great 
stature,  went  before,  and  Phillips,  a  tall,  comely  person,  followed  behind  him  ; 
who  had  set  officers  on  either  side  of  the  door  on  two  seats,  who  being  there 
might  see  who  came  in  the  entry  ;  and  coming  through  the  same,  Phillips  point- 
ed with  his  finger  over  Master  Tyndale's  head  down  to  him,  that  the  officers  who 
sat  at  the  door  might  see  that  it  was  he  whom  they  should  take,  as  the  officers 
afterward  told  Pointz,  and  said,  when  they  had  laid  him  in  prison,  that  they 
pitied  to  see  his  simplicity,  when  they  took  him.  Then  they  brought  him  to  the 
Emperor's  attorney,  where  he  dined.  Then  came  he,  the  attorney,  to  the  house 
of  Pointz,  and  sent  away  all  that  was  there  of  Master  Tyndale's,  as  well  his 
books  as  other  things,  and  from  thence  Tyndale  was  had  to  the  castle  of 
Vilvorde,  eighteen  English  miles  from  Antwerp." 

No  sooner  was  this  infamous  transaction  known  than  Tyndale's 
friends  in  Antwerp  exerted  their  utmost  in  his  behalf.  By  their  influ- 
ence the  House  of  Merchant  Adventurers  was  induced  to  make  a 
formal  application  to  the  court  of  Brussels  for  his  release.  But 
through  the  indifference  or  timidity  of  their  chief  officer,  to  whom  the 
business  was  entrusted,  nothing  resulted  from  the  attempt.  An  effort 
was  also  made  to  secure  interest  for  him  at  the  English  Court,  but 
with  no  decisive  effect.*     Alarmed  for  his  revered   friend,   Thomas 

*  Thebald,  at  this  time  the  confidential  agent  of  Cranmer  and  Crumwell  on 
the  continent,  makes  report  to  his  employers,  in  the  manner  of  one  who  had 


l6o  ENGLISH   BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

Pointz  now  resolved  to  try  what  could  be  done  by  his  personal  energy. 
He  had  a  brother  in  England,  John  Pointz,  who  had  been  for  twenty 
years  in  familiar  intercourse  with  King  Henry  and  his  court,  and  was 
now  a  member  of  the  royal  household.  To  him  he  directed  a  letter, 
in  which  he  boldly  charges  Tyndale's  imprisonment  upon  the  Papists, 
as  part  of  a  deep-laid  plot  for  the  subversion  of  his  Majesty's  govern- 
ment, and  of  the  religious  reforms  which  it  supported  ;  and  he  urges 
his  brother,  either  in  his  own  person  or  through  others,  to  bring  the 
matter  directly  before  the  King.  The  honest  warmth  and  fearlessness 
of  this  letter,  equally  free  from  pretension  and  servility,  is  an  honora- 
ble index  not  only  of  the  worth  of  the  man,  but  of  the  spirit  of  the 
class  to  which  he  belonged.  England,  in  the  sixteenth  century,  had 
no  such  nobles  as  those  princely-hearted  merchants  of  hers,  who  had 
dared  to  search  the  Scriptures  for  themselves  ;  none  so  free  in  thought, 
so  bold  in  word,  yet  none  so  loyal  to  their  King  and  country. 

This  letter  seems  to  have  made  a  decided  impression.  Before  the 
close  of  the  next  month  a  messenger  was  dispatched  from  the  English 
court,  less  perhaps  from  the  wish  to  befriend  Tyndale,  though  this  was 
the  ostensible  object,  than  to  look  after  those  traitorous  Englishmen 
mentioned  by  Pointz,  as  so  busy  at  Louvain  ;  one  of  whom  was 
already  known,  from  Thebald's  letter,  as  engaged  in  treasonable  prac- 
tices against  the  King.  The  relations  of  the  two  governments  not 
allowing  of  direct  communication,  letters  were  addressed  by  Crumwell 
to  two  distinguished  persons  who  had  great  influence  at  the  court  of 
Brussels,  requesting  their  friendly  offices  in  the  matter.  Having  with 
great  difficulty  obtained  the  desired  letters,  Pointz  himself  repaired 
with  them  to  England,  and  after  a  month's  detention  for  Crumwell's 
dispatches  in  reply,  returned  with  all  haste  to  Brussels.  Here^he  laid 
his  papers  before  the  Council  and  awaited  its  decision.  This  was 
about  the  first  of  November,  1535. 

•  Things  now  looked  very  favorable  for  the  venerable  prisoner,  and 
Pointz  was  in  daily  expectation  that  he  would  be  delivered  into  his  cus- 
tody, when  he  was  himself  apprehended  by  the  Procurer-General,  and 
placed  in  strict  confinement.  This  was  the  work  of  the  infamous 
Phillips.  Perceiving  how  the  case  was  likely  to  turn,  he  could  think 
of  no  better  device  than  boldly  to  accuse  Pointz  as  an  adherent  of  Tyn- 
dale, and  the  sole  mover,  from  mere  personal  and  party  motives,  of 
the  measures  for  his  release.     On  this  charge  he  had  been  seized  ;  and 

been  especially  directed  by  them  to  watch  the  case.— (Anderson,  vol.  i.,  pp. 
423-25)-  To  what  can  the  change  in  Crumwell's  policy  be  ascribed,  but  the  in- 
fluence  of  Anne  Boleyn  ?  But  he  was  still  too  selfish,  as  Cranmer  was  too  timid, 
to  risk  the  favor  of  Henry  by  any  direct  and  earnest  efforts  in  behalf  of  Tyndale, 


MARTYRDOM  OF  TYNDALE.  l6l 

thus  the  good  man,  instead  of  welcoming  his  friend  to  liberty,  found 
himself  a  prisoner,  and  in  imminent  hazard  of  his  life. 

An  imprisonment  of  more  than  three  months  followed,  during  which 
every  obstacle  was  thrown  in  the  way  of  his  defence  ;  while  he  was 
loaded  with  enormous  prison  charges,  for  which  immediate  payment 
was  demanded  without  allowing  him  opportunity  to  procure  the  means. 
Satisfied  that  his  temporal  ruin,  if  not  his  death,  was  resolved  on, 
Pointz  determined  to  use  his  best  chance  for  life  and  justice  by  mak- 
ing his  escape.  This  he  effected  under  cover  of  night  ;  and  being 
well  acquainted  with  the  country,  he  eluded  his  pursuers,  and  found 
his  way  safely  into  England. 

This  is  the  last  attempt  on  record  for  the  deliverance  of  Tyndale. 
Could  Pointz  have  effected  anything  after  his  return,  it  is  safe  to  con- 
clude that  he  would  have  done  it  at  every  personal  risk.  Cranmer 
and  Crumwell  were  still  high  in  power  ;  but  she  was  gone,  whose 
womanly  and  queenly  heart  had  once  infused  somewhat  of  its  own 
generous  warmth  and  courage  into  theirs,  and  who  had  pleaded  with 
the  capricious  King  for  truth  and  its  champions.  The  Reformer  was 
now  abandoned  to  the  will  of  bis  enemies. 

The  imprisonment  of  Tyndale  seems  not  to  have  been  as  harsh  as 
that  to  which  heretics  had  been  subjected  in  England.  By  his  pious 
efforts  the  jailor  and  his  family  were  led  to  embrace  the  truth  ;  and 
in  their  kind  Christian  ministry  did  much,  no  doubt,  to  cheer  his 
spirits  and  soften  the  hardships  of  his  situation.  He  was  allowed  the 
use  of  writing  materials,  and  sustained  an  animated  controversy  with 
the  Theological  Faculty  of  Louvain.  This  was  permitted,  however, 
for  the  purpose  of  drawing  from  him  an  avowal  of  sentiments  which 
might  serve  as  a  basis  for  his  trial  and  condemnation.  For  under  the 
imperial  rule,  even  heretics  could  not  be  dealt  with  in  the  summary 
style  so  much  in  vogue  with  Sir  Thomas  More  and  the  English  bishops. 

About  a  year  and  three-quarters  thus  passed  away.  At  length,  all 
things  being  ripe,  his  enemies  pushed  the  matter  to  a  conclusion. 

In  1530,  a  very  stringent  decree  against  heresy  had  been  issued  a* 
Augsburg  under  the  Emperor's  authority,  directed  particularly  against 
the  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith.  This  still  remained  in  full  force. 
Tyndale  had  long  been  known  as  the  chief  expositor  of  the  obnoxious 
doctrine  ;  and  his  late  controversy  with  the  Doctors  of  Louvain  had 
given  occasion  to  a  most  explicit  statement  of  his  views.  Now  the 
Privy  Council  of  Brussels,  which  had  full  jurisdiction  in  all  cases — re- 
ligious as  well  as  political — was  completely  under  the  dominion  of  the 
priests,  having  for  its  president  a  high  dignitary  of  the  Romish  Church 
and  a  bitter  opposer  of  the  truth — the  Bishop  of  Palermo.      The  reign- 


l62  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

ing  Princess  herself  was  a  mere  tool  of  the  monks.  Two  years  before, 
Erasmus  had  said  that  "  those  animals  were  omnipotent  at  the  court 
of  Brussels."  Such  being  the  case — to  say  nothing  of  the  gold  with 
which  Phillips  was  so  liberally  supplied  for  enlightening  the  eyes  of 
the  ministers  of  justice — it  would  have  been  marvellous,  indeed,  had 
the  unfriended  prisoner  received  a  favorable  sentence.  All  the  forms 
of  justice  were  allowed  him.  He  declined,  however,  the  offered  assist- 
ance of  an  advocate  and  procurer,  saying  that  he  would  answer  for 
himself.  This  he  was  permitted  to  do  ;  and  we  may  be  sure  that  his 
judges  that  day  listened  to  an  exposition  of  truth  such  as  they  had  sel- 
dom heard.  But  they  had  met  to  condemn,  not  to  be  convinced  ; 
and  though  unable  to  confute  his  arguments,  it  was  easy  to  prove  him 
guilty  under  the  decree  of  Augsburg. 

On  Friday,  the  sixth  of  October,  1536,  William  Tyndale  was  led 
forth  to  die.  Having  been  bound  to  the  stake,  he  was  first  strangled 
and  his  dead  body  then  burned  to  ashes.  His  last  words,  "  uttered 
with  fervent  zeal  and  in  a  loud  voice  were  these  :  '  Lord,  open  the 
King  of  England's  eyes  !  '  " 

Thus  perished,  a  victim  to  priestcraft,  the  purest  of  England's  pat- 
riots and  the  crown  of  her  martyrs — the  best  and  greatest  man  of  his 
time  ! 


CHAPTER   XXII. 

TRIUMPH    OF    THE    PRINCIPLE. 

Nothing  is  more  common  with  the  enemies  of  truth  than  to  sup- 
pose, when  the  champion  of  a  great  principle  is  struck  down,  that  the 
principle  itself  is  dead.  Especially  does  the  history  of  Bible  transla- 
tion abound  with  exemplifications  of  this  remark.  Every  step  of 
progress  in  this  foundation  work  of  Christian  philanthropy — without 
which  all  others  are  but  as  blossoms  without  a  root,  and  out  of  which 
all  others  spring  by  an  inevitable  law — has  been  marked  with  martyrs. 
Not  all  martyrs  at  the  stake,  like  Frith  and  Tyndale  ;  but  martyrs  as 
to  their  peace,  their  reputation,  the  good  will  and  respect  of  their  fel- 
low-men. And  what  have  the  "  haters  of  light"  accomplished  by  such 
a  policy  ?  Nothing,  except  to  verify  that  saying  of  our  Lord,  in 
which,  just  before  his  own  bitter  and  shameful  death,  he  announced 
the  prime  law  of  growth  in  his  kingdom  :  "  Except  a  corn  of  wheat 
fall  into  the  ground  and  die,  it  abideth  alone  ;  but  if  it  die,  it  bringeth 
forth  much  fruit. ' ' 

For  ten  years  Tyndale  had  been  subjected  to  a  life  of  extremest 
privation  and  suffering.  An  exile  and  a  fugitive,  with  no  certain 
home,  pinched  with  poverty,  reviled  as  a  traitor,  heretic,  and  blas- 
phemer, hunted  like  a  venomous  reptile  from  one  hiding  place  to 
another,  he  confessed,  patient  and  heroic  as  he  was,  that  "  very  death 
were  more  pleasant  to  him  than  life."  And  now,  the  purpose  of  his 
persecutors  was  accomplished.  The  great  heart,  and  busy  brain,  and 
hand  that  never  tired  in  the  service  of  humanity,  were  turned  to  ashes, 
and  scattered  to  the  winds.  This  was  their  hour,  and  the  power  of 
darkness.  That  light  blotted  out,  and  they  fancied  that  the  hated  in- 
fluences it  had  called  into  being  would  perish  with  it. 

At  this  point  let  us  look  back  a  moment,  and  see  how  far  their  past 
experience  justified  such  a  hope. 

It  was  at  the  beginning  of  the  year  1526  that  the  first  copies  of  Tyn- 
dale's  New  Testament  appeared  in  England.  From  the  moment  of 
its  discovery  in  the  hands  of  the  young  men  at  Oxford,  ecclesiastical 
proscription,  sustained  by  civil  statutes,  "  dreadful  and  penal,"  had 
been  directed  against  it.  Those  convicted  of  the  crime  of  reading, 
hearing,  or  circulating  it,  were  fined,  whipped,  imprisoned,  subjected 


164  ENGLISH    BIBLE    TRANSLATION. 

to  disgraceful  public  penance  ;  and  if  found  unyielding,  were  burned 
at  the  stake.  Merchant  ships  were  searched  for  it  ;  international  laws 
forbade  its  importation  ;  it  was  bought  up  wholesale  in  foreign  mar- 
kets ;  great  church  dignitaries  presided  over  the  bonfires  in  which  it 
was  consumed,  as  at  a  solemn  religious  festival.  This  policy  had  been 
pursued  with  a  thoroughness  and  persistency  unsurpassed  in  the  his- 
tory of  religious  persecution.     And  what  was  the  result  ? 

In  1529  a  fifth  edition  of  the  proscribed  book  was  circulating  in  Eng- 
land. Such  had  been  the  demand  for  the  Word  of  God  awakened 
within  the  space  of  three  years  !  In  1530,  the  year  of  Tunstal's  great 
Bible-burning,  the  people  were  reading  the  Pentateuch,  as  well  as  the 
New  Testament  ;  and  in  the  words  of  Hall,  "  Bibles  came  thick  and 
threefold  into  England."  Two  years  later,  Sir  Thomas  More  speaks 
of  them  as  coming  in  "  by  the  whole  vats-full  at  once."  In  1534  the 
Convocation  itself  was  compelled,  by  influences  which  had  become 
too  strong  to  be  overborne,  to  ask  that  the  King  would  order  a  trans- 
lation of  the  Scriptures  into  English.  In  the  Convocation  of  1536, 
the  lower  House  sent  to  their  superiors  a  "  protestation,"  respecting 
the  alarming  spread  of  heresy  in  the  province  of  Canterbury.  The 
specifications  of  false  teaching  amount  to  sixty-seven,  and  afford  a 
most  gratifying  evidence  of  the  progress  of  truth.  The  service  of  the 
Mass,  worship  of  saints,  auricular  confession,  penance,  absolution, 
purgatory,  are  conceded  to  have  become  matters  of  common  question. 
The  fifth  item  declares,  that  "it  is  commonly  preached,  taught,  and 
spoken,  that  all  ceremonies  accustomed  in  the  Church,  which  are  not 
clearly  expressed  in  Scripture,  must  be  taken  away,  because  they  are 
men's  inventions."  The  fifty-sixth  complains,  that  "by  preaching, 
the  people  have  been  brought  into  the  opinion  and  belief  that  nothing 
is  to  be  believed  except  it  can  be  proved  expressly  from  Scripture  !" 
But  still  more  striking,  as  an  index  of  the  times,  is  the  language  to 
which  the  assembled  bishops  were  obliged  to  listen  from  one  of  their 
own  number — Edward  Fox,  Bishop  of  Hereford.  Stokesly  having 
offered  to  confute  the  new  teaching  respecting  the  sacraments — not 
only  by  Scripture,  but  by  the  old  doctors  and  by  the  schoolmen  also — 
Fox  rose,  and  after  referring  to  the  King's  command  that  they  should 
appeal  in  this  matter  to  the  Holy  Scriptures  alone,  he  addressed  his 
brethren  in  these  noble  words  : 

"  Think  ye  not  that  we  can,  by  any  sophistical  subtilties,  steal  out  of  the 
world  again  the  light  which  every  man  doth  see.  Christ  hath  so  lightened  the 
world  at  this  time  that  the  light  of  the  Gospel  hath  put  to  flight  all  misty  dark- 
ness ;  and  it  will  shortly  have  the  higher  hand  of  all  clouds,  though  we  resist  in 
vain  never  so  much.     The  lay  people  do  now  know  the   Holy  Scripture  better 


TRIUMPH    OF    THE    PRINCIPLE.  165 

than  many  of  us.  And  the  Germans  have  made  the  text  of  the  Bible  so  plain 
and  easy,  by  the  Hebrew  and  Greek  tongue,  that  now  many  things  may  be  better 
understood,  without  any  glosses  at  all,  than  by  all  the  commentaries  of  the  doc- 
tors. And,  moreover,  they  have  so  opened  these  controversies  by  their  writings 
that  women  and  children  may  wonder  at  the  blindness  and  falsehood  that  hath 
been  hitherto.  Wherefore,  ye  must  consider  earnestly  what  ye  will  determine 
of  these  controversies,  that  ye  make  not  yourselves  to  be  mocked  and  laughed  to 
scorn  of  all  the  world  ;  and  that  ye  bring  them  not  to  have  this  opinion  of  ^you, 
to  think  evermore  hereafter  that  ye  have  not  one  spark  of  learning  nor  yet  of 
godliness  in  you.  And  thus  shall  ye  lose  all  your  estimation  and  authority  with 
them  which  before  took  you  fur  learned  men  and  profitable  members  unto  the 
commonwealth  of  Christendom.  For  that  which  you  do  hope  upon,  that  there 
was  never  heresy  in  the  Church  so  great  but  that  process  of  time,  with  the  power 
and  authority  of  the  Pope,  hath  quenched  it — it  is  nothing  to  the  purpose.  But 
ye  must  turn  (change)  your  opinion,  and  think  this  surely,  that  there  is  nothing 
so  feeble  and  weak,  so  that  it  be  true,  but  it  shall  find  place,  and  be  able  to  stand 
against  all  falsehood. 

"  Truth  is  the  daughter  of  time,  and  time  is  the  mother  of  truth.  And  whatso- 
ever is  besieged  of  truth  cannot  long  continue  ;  and  upon  whose  side  truth  doth 
stand  that  ought  not  to  be  thought  transitory,  or  that  it  will  ever  fall.  All  things 
consist  not  in  painted  eloquence,  and  strength,  cr  authority.  For  the  truth  is  of 
so  great  power,  strength  and  efficacity,  that  it  can  neither  be  defended  with 
words,  nor  be  overcome  with  any  strength  ;  but  after  she  hath  hidden  herself 
long,  at  length  she  putteth  up  her  head  and  appeareth." 

Stokesly's  impatient  reply  to  this  and  similar  speeches,  contained 
an  undesigned,  but  most  satisfactory  confirmation  of  what  Fox  had 
asserted.  "  Let  us  grant,"  said  the  incensed  prelate,  "  that  the  sacra- 
ments maybe  gathered  out  of  the  word  of  God  ;  yet  are  ye  far  deceived 
if  ye  think  that  there  is  none  other  word  of  God  but  that  which  every 

SOUTER  AND  COBBLER  DOTH  READ  IN  HIS  MOTHER  TONGUE  !"  Be- 
fore the  close  of  the  Convocation,  a  second  petition  to  the  King  was 
agreed  on,  praying  his  Majesty,  "  that  he  would  graciously  permit  the 
use  of  the  Scriptures  to  the  laity,  and  that  a  new  translation  of  it 
might  be  forthwith  made  for  that  end  and  purpose."  A  wonderful 
change  indeed  since  the  day  when  it  was  safe  for  them  to  declare  all 
translations  into  the  vernacular  unlawful,  and  when  the  Scriptures  were 
themselves  denounced  as  heretical  and  decreed  "to  be  clean  forbid- 
den and  banished  forever  out  of  the  realm  of  England  !"  Not  that 
the  Romish  Bishops  were  any  more  cordial  in  their  hearts  to  such  a 
measure  than  they  had  ever  been  ;  but  the  advocates  of  the  Bible  had 
now  become  the  stronger  party.  Their  influence  was  indeed  still  suffi- 
cient to  prevent  the  recognition  of  either  of  the  existing  translations, 
and  they  trusted  by  a  "  masterly  inactivity"  in  preparing  a  new  one, 
to  put  far  off  the  evil  day.  But  they  had  at  least  been  compelled  to 
concede,  by  repeated   formal   acts,  the  fundamental   principle,  that  it 


l66  ENGLISH    BIBLE    TRANSLATION'. 

is  safe  and  right  to  give  the  laity  the  Scriptures  in  their  mother  tongue. 
The  people,  however,  did  not  wait  for  them.  From  the  year  1530, 
Tyndale's  New  Testament  had  been  coming  into  England  at  the  rate 
of  two  editions  annually  ;  and  at  least  nine  or  .ten  editions  crowned 
the  year  of  his  martyrdom. 

Such  had  been  the  fruit  of  their  opposition  while  the  man  still 
lived,  who  had  been  instrumental  in  giving  the  chief  impulse  to  this 
mighty  movement.  Let  us  now  see  what  they  accomplished  by  his 
death. 

The  events  now  to  be  related  seem  so  strange,  so  far  out  of  the 
common  range  of  probabilities,  that  even  the  most  skeptical  can 
hardly  fail  to  discern  in  them  an  unseen  Power,  carrying  headlong  the 
counsels  of  the  crafty,  and  turning  to  its  own  beneficent  ends  the 
selfish  policy  of  ambitious  statesmen  and  the  caprices  of  a  cruel  des- 
pot. To  understand  this  part  of  our  history  a  little  previous  explana- 
tion is  required. 

At  the  fall  of  Wolsey,  the  prospects  of  Thomas  Crumwell,  the  most 
attached  and  distinguished  of  his  adherents,  seemed  to  have  received 
their  death  blow.  From  this  fate  he  extricated  himself  by  a  single 
step,  equally  bold  and  sagacious,  and  planted  his  foot  securely  on  the 
ladder  of  political  promotion.  Two  days  before  the  meeting  of  Par- 
liament he  left  the  residence  of  his  fallen  master,  saying  to  one  of  the 
household  :  "  I  shall  make  or  mar  ere  I  come  again  !"  The  very 
next  day  he  obtained  an  interview  with  Henry,  and  suggested  to  him 
that  daring  line  of  policy,  which  in  due  time  added  to  his  royal  title 
that  of  "  Supreme  Head  of  the  Church  in  England,"  and  reduced  the 
proud  clergy  into  the  most  submissive  and  most  liberal  of  vassals. 
Another  item  of  this  great  plan  was  the  replenishment  of  the  King's 
coffers  by  the  reduction  of  monasteries  and  confiscation  of  their  trea- 
sure ;  but  this  had  been  deferred  for  prudential  reasons  to  the  year 
1535,  when  the  King's  necessities  admitted  of  no  farther  delay.  As  a 
preliminary  step,  Crumwell— a  layman  and  commoner,  without  high 
connections,  or  even  an  education  to  atone  for  want  of  rank — was,  by 
an  exercise  of  royal  power,  constituted  the  second  man  in  the  king- 
dom. By  his  office  as  the  King's  "  Vicegerent,  Vicar-General, 
Commissary  special  and  general,"  he  not  only  took  rank  next  to  the 
royal  family,  and  controlled  the  secular  affairs  of  the  realm,  but  had 
the  right,  in  the  King's  absence,  to  preside  in  the  Convocations  of  the 
clergy,  and  was  Superior  of  all  the  monasteries.  This  appointment 
was  followed  by  the  visitation  and  suppression,  in  the  most  summary 
style,  of  all  monasteries,  amounting  to  three  hundred  and  seventy-six, 
whose  income  did  not  exceed  ,£200  per  annum  ;  thus  augmenting  the 


TRIUMPH   OF   THE   PRINCIPLE.  1 67 

yearly  royal  revenue  by  the  snug  little  sum  of  ,£75,200 — equivalent  to 
more  than  a  million  dollars  of  our  time. 

This  was  very  gratifying,  but  there  were  other  consequences  not  so 
pleasant.  Of  course  we  can  find  no  fault  with  the  dissolution  of  these 
haunts  of  idleness  and  profligacy.  But  the  wholesome  measure  was 
effected  in  a  manner  most  unjust  and  inhuman.  Talleyrand  would 
have  said  it  was  worse  than  a  crime  ;  it  was  a  blunder  !  Thousands 
of  persons  suddenly  ejected  from  their  comfortable  homes,  and  turned 
loose  upon  the  world  with  forty  shillings  in  their  hands,  to  seek  living 
and  shelter  where  they  could,  were  not  likely  to  be  preachers  of  loy- 
alty, or  of  the  religion  under  whose  name  they  were  persecuted.  The 
honest  heart  of  the  people,  moreover,  ever  sides  with  the  oppressed. 
Suffering  becomes  virtue  in  their  eyes.  And  they  are  right  ;  for 
cruelty,  in  whatever  form,  or  upon  whomsoever  exercised,  is  the  very 
spirit  of  the  lower  regions.  The  secular  clergy  had  already  tasted  of 
the  royal  mercy  ;  the  higher  monasteries  might  securely  count  upon 
their  own  doom  as  near  at  hand.  The  result  was  just  what  might 
have  been  expected.  In  the  month  of  October,  1536,  a  formidable 
insurrection  burst  forth,  which  threatened  the  country  with  all  the 
horrors  of  a  bloody  civil  war.  In  Lincolnshire  the  rising  was  twenty 
thousand  strong  ;  in  Yorkshire  twice  that  number. 

By  the  firmness  and  energy  of  the  government  the  movement  was 
soon  quelled  ;  but  it  had  given  formidable  evidence  that  Popery's 
tough  roots  still  held  fast  to  the  English  soil,  and  that  it  would  re- 
quire more  than  laws  of  sequestration,  or  force  of  arms,  to  eradicate 
it.  The  keen  eye  of  Crurnwell  saw  what  his  master's  had  failed  to 
perceive — that  the  vicious  weed  which  could  not  be  torn  out  from  the 
earth  of  which  it  had  so  long  held  sole  occupancy,  must  be  groumont 
by  a  yet  stronger  plant.  Its  hold  must  be  loosened  from  beneath,  or 
the  work  on  the  surface  would  be  done  only  to  be  repeated.  Behold, 
then,  the  unpitying  persecutor  of  Tyndale,  the  unscrupulous  and 
worldly  statesman,  whose  self-exaltation  was  the  god  of  his  worship, 
making  it  one  of  his  chief  cares, amid  the  overwhelming  toils  of  state, 
and  thp  engrossing  schemes  of  personal  ambition,  to  provide  the  peo- 
ple with  the  Word  of  God  !  In  this  is  revealed,  more  strikingly  than 
in  his  most  brilliant  strokes  of  policy,  the  penetrating  intellect  of  this 
great  practical  genius.  His  ken  went  to  the  bottom  of  the  elemental 
causes  of  national  life,  and  discerned  that  the  strength  of  the  new 
order  of  things  lay  not  in  the  external  power  of  government,  but  in 
the  moral  sentiments  and  convictions  of  the  people. 

Crurnwell  had  already  given  his  countenance  and  aid  to  the  efforts 
of  Cranmer  and   Coverdale.     But  henceforward   we  perceive  in  his 


l68  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

movements  in  this  direction,  the  unwavering  energy  of  a  clear  and 
settled  purpose.  A  Bible,  to  be  placed  by  authority  in  every  church 
in  England,  to  be  read  in  public  as  a  stated  part  of  the  religious  in- 
struction of  the  people,  while  free  access  to  it  should  be  allowed  to 
rich  and  poor,  who  might  desire  to  read  it  for  themselves — such  from 
this  time  became  one  of  the  prime  objects  of  this  great  politician. 
From  what  foliows  we  should  judge  that  he  had  converted  Henry  to 
the  same  view  ;  and  in  Archbishop  Cranmer  he  would  find  an  earnest 
and  efficient  coadjutor,  from  purer  motives. 

But  how  was  this  Bible  to  be  obtained  ?  It  was  hopeless  to  look 
for  one  from  the  bishops  ;  Cranmer's,  which  from  the  very  method 
employed  in  preparing  it  was  unfit  for  a  standard  version,  had  fallen 
to  the  ground  ;  Coverdale's  was  under  a  cloud,  on  account  of  its  con- 
nection with  the  murdered  queen.  For  the  version  which  is  to  be- 
come the  first  authorized  English  Bible,  we  must  look  away 
from  England,  to  the  man  who  had  so  recently  suffered  martyrdom 
for  having  given  it  to  her  people. 

We  have  no  direct  information  in  regard  to  the  progress  which  Tyn- 
dale  had  made  in  translating  the  Old  Testament,  at  the  time  he  was 
imprisoned  in  the  castle  of  Vilvorde.  Only  the  Pentateuch  and  Jonah 
had  been  given  to  the  world  ;  and  it  is  generally  supposed,  on  the 
authority  of  Hall,  a  contemporary  chronicler,  that  the  translation  had 
proceeded  no  farther  than  to  the  close  of  the  historical  books.  But 
there  are  certain  indisputable  facts  which  it  is  difficult  to  harmonize 
with  this  supposition. 

Soon  after  he  was  thrown  into  prison,  a  folio  edition  of  the  entire 
Bible,  containing  his  translations  already  published,  and  completed 
from  his  manuscripts  or  some  other  source,  was  commenced  in  Ger- 
many by 'his  friend  and  fellow  exile,  John  Rogers.  It  was  finished 
within  a  year  after  his  death,  early  in  the  summer  of  1537,  and  pub- 
lished vnder  the  assumed  name  of  Thomas  Matthew,  hence  called 
Matthew ' s  Bible.  But  the  editor  claimed  it  for  his  friend,  by  insert- 
ing his  initials,  W.  T.  in  conspicuous  ornamental  letters  at  the  end 
of  the  Old  Testament.*  Why  else  should  he  have  placed  it  there  ;  or 
on  what  other  ground  could  the  act  be  defended  from  the  charge  of 
fraud  ?  The  plea  that  Tyndale  had  not  had  time  to  complete  the 
work  is  not  sustained  by  sufficient  evidence.  Four  years  had  elapsed 
between  the  publication  of  the  Pentateuch  and  his  imprisonment  ;  and 
though  his  pen  was  indeed  busy  in  other  ways  we  have  no  reason  to 
think  he  had,  on  this  account,  laid  aside  that  which  he  considered  pre- 

*   His  New  Testament  was  too  well   known  to  need  any  such  index  to  its  author. 


TRIUMPH   OF   THE   PRINCIPLE.  169 

eminently  his  life-work.  His  nearly  two  years'  imprisonment  would 
most  naturally  have  been  devoted  to  its  completion  ;  and  viewed  in 
connection  with  John  Rogers'  undertaking,  we  can  hardly  doubt  it 
was  so.  The  similarity  of  this  portion  of  Matthew's  Bible  to  that  of 
Coverdale  (published  in  1535),  has  given  rise  to  the  belief  that  the 
version  of  the  latter  had  furnished  the  books  which  Tyndale  had  not 
been  able  to  translate.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  there  are  striking 
variations  from  that  version  ;  and  since  Coverdale  had  adopted  into  it 
Tyndale's  well  known  translation  of  Jonah,  verbatim,  it  is  quite  as 
reasonable  to  suppose  that,  during  the  period  he  was  abroad  preparing 
his  Bible,  he  had  access  to  the  manuscripts  of  Tyndale.  But,  however 
this  question  may  be  decided,  the  larger  and  more  important  part  of 
the  newly  edited  version  was,  without  dispute,  the  work  of  the  mar- 
tyred reformer,  the  very  work  which  for  ten  years  had  been  pro- 
scribed in  England. 

In  the  circumstances  of  its  introduction  into  the  kingdom,  we  see 
evidences  of  plan  and  concert,  not  to  be  mistaken.  It  had  been  about 
half  carried  through  the  press  by  private  contributions  of  friends  of 
the  Gospel,  when  two  prominent  English  printers — Grafton  and  Whit- 
church— came  forward,  and  assumed  the  cost  and  risk  of  completing 
it.  As  soon  as  it  left  the  press,  Grafton  hastened  over  the  sea  with  a 
single  copy  for  Archbishop  Cranmer.  Finding  on  his  arrival  that  the 
Primate  had  just  quitted  London  on  account  of  the  plague,  he 
hastened  after  him  to  Forde,  his  country  residence,  in  Kent.  This 
could  not  have  been  before  the  1st  or  2d  of  August,  since  Cranmer 
was  still  on  duty  in  London  the  29th  of  July.*  Yet  on  the  4th  of 
August  he  was  prepared  to  endorse  the  entire  translation  and  in  the 
warmest  terms  to  recommend  its  adoption  as  the  Bible  to  be  author- 
ized by  his  Majesty  for  use  in  the  churches  and  for  universal  diffusion 
among  the  people.  His  letter  on  the  subject  to  Lord  Crumwell  is  as 
follows  : 

"  My  especial  good  Lord,  after  most  hearty  commendations  unto  your  Lord- 
ship ;  these  shall  be  to  signify  unto  the  same  that  you  shall  receive  by  the  bringer 
thereof  a  Bible  both  of  a  new  translation  and  a  new  print,  dedicated  unto  the 
King's  Majesty,  as  farther  appeareth  by  a  pistle  unto  his  Grace  in  the  beginning 
of  the  book,  which,  in  mine  opinion,  is  very  well  done  ;  and  therefore  I  pi  ay 
your  Lordship  to  read  the  same.  And  as  for  the  translation,  so  far  as  I  hive 
read  thereof,  I  like  it  better  than  any  other  translation  heretofore  made  ;  yet  not 
doubting  that  there  may  and  will  be  found  some  fault  therein,  as  you  know  no 
man  ever  did  or  can  do  so  well,  but  it  may  from  time  to  time  be  amended. 

"  And  forasmuch  as  the  book  is  dedicated  unto  the  King's  Grace,  and  alsrf 

*  Anderson,  vol.  i.,  p.  573. 


lyo  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

great  pains  and  labor  taken  in  setting  forth  of  the  same,  I  pray  you,  my  Lord, 
that  you  will  exhibit  the  book  unto  the  King's  Highness,  and  obtain  of  his  Grace 
if  you  can,  a  license  that  the  same  may  be  sold  and  read  of  every  person,  with- 
out danger  of  any  act,  proclamation,  or  ordinance  heretofore  granted  to  the  con- 
trary, until  such  time  that  we,  the  bishops,  shall  set  forth  a  better  translation, 
which  I  think  will  not  be  till  the  day  after  doomsday  !  And  if  you  continue  to 
take  such  pains  for  the  setting  forth  of  God's  Word  as  you  do,  although  in  the 
mean  season  you  suffer  some  snubs  and  many  slanders,  lies,  and  reproaches  for 
the  same,  yet  one  day  He  will  requite  all  together.  And  the  same  word,  as  St. 
John  saith,  which  shall  judge  every  man  at  the  last  day,  must  needs  show  favor 
to  them  that  now  do  favor  it.  Thus,  my  Lord,  right  heartily  fare  you  well.  At 
Forde,  the  4th  day  of  August,  [1537.]     Your  assured  ever. —  T.  Cantuarien." 

The  Vicar-General  was  no  less  prompt.  While  all  the  bishops  had 
been  dispersed  by  fear  of  the  plague,  he  had  remained  at  his  post, 
apparently  to  see  this  matter  safely  through.  The  absence  of  all  the 
opposing  prelates  left  the  field  unobstructed,  and  he  used  the  oppor- 
tunity with  his  usual  decision.  Within  eight  days  from  the  date  of 
the  above  letter,  Cranmer  acknowledges  the  receipt  of  information 
from  his  Lordship  that  he  had  exhibited  the  translation  to  his  Majesty, 
and  had  obtained  his  full  assent  to  what  had  been  requested  !  Thus 
in  less  than  a  fortnight  from  the  first  arrival  of  Tyndale's  whole  Bible 
in  England,  it  is  decreed  to  be  "  set  forth  with  the  King's  most 
gracious  license  ";  and  also,  that  it  "be  sold  and  read  of  every 
person,  without  danger  of  any  act,  proclamation,  or  ordinance  hereto- 
fore granted  to  the  contrary  !" 

The  next  year  Crumwell,  as  "  Vicegerent  unto  the  King's  High- 
ness," issued  the  following  "  injunctions"  to  the  clergy,  to  be  observed 
and  kept,  on  pain  of  deprivation,  sequestration  of  fruits,  or  such  other 
coercion  as  to  the  King's  Highness,  or  his  Vicegerent  for  the  time 
being,  shall  seem  convenient  : 

First,  "  That  ye  shall  provide  before  the  ensuing  feast  of  the  Nativity,  (Decem- 
ber 25,)  one  book  of  the  whole  Bible,  of  the  largest  volume  in  English,*  and 
the  same  set  up  in  some  convenient  place  within  the  said  church,  that  ye  have 
care  of, where  your  parishioners  may  most  conveniently  resort  to  the  same  and 
read  it  ;  the  charges  of  which  book  shall  be  rateably  borne  between  you,  the 
parson  and  parishioners  aforesaid  —that  is  to  say,  the  one  half  by  you,  the  other 
half  by  them. 

Secondly,  "  That  ye  shall  discourage  no  man,  privily  or  apertly,  [openly], 
from  the  reading  or  the  hearing  of  the  said  Bible  ;  but  shall  expressly  provoke, 
stir,  and  exhort  every  person  to  read  the  same,  as  that  which  is  the  very  lively 
word  of  God,  that  every  Christian  person  is  bound  to  embrace,  believe,  and  follow, 
if  they  look  to  be  saved  ;  admonishing  them,  nevertheless,  to  avoid  all  contention 

*  Thus  distinguishing  Tyndale's  from  the  two  editions  of  Coverdale  now  in 
the  market,  those  being  of  smaller  size. — Anderson,  vol.  ii.,  p.  34,  Note. 


TRIUMPH   OF   THE   PRINCIPLE.  171 

and  altercation  therein,  but  to  use  an  honest  sobriety  in  their  inquisition  of  the 
true  sense  of  the  same,  and  to  refer  the  explication  of  the  obscure  places  to  men 
of  higher  judgment  in  the  Scripture." 

Nor  did  Crumwell's  efforts  stop  here.  Already  the  Popish  party 
had  begun  to  rally.  For  a  while  the  scales  fluctuated — now  to  this 
side,  now  to  that  ;  but  at  length  settled  in  favor  of  Crumwell's  ene- 
mies. During  the  three  years  succeeding  the  time  when  he  welcomed 
the  vernacular  Bible  into  England,  all  his  powers  were  tasked  to  meet 
the  strange  and  ever-shifting  exigencies  of  the  conflict.  Through  this 
entire  period,  he  urged  on  the  cause  of  Bible-translation  and  circula- 
tion, as  if  that  were  one  of  the  essential  conditions  of  his  political  sal- 
vation. In  1538,  before  the  first  edition  of  Tyndale's  Bible  was  ex- 
hausted, he  had  persuaded  Henry  to  obtain  from  Francis  I.  permission 
for  printing  an  edition  of  the  English  Bible  in  Paris,  where  it  could 
be  executed  in  much  better  style  than  in  England.  Thither  he  sent 
Coverdale  and  Bonner — then  a  loud  advocate  for  vernacular  transla- 
tions— to  revise  the  version  and  superintend  the  press,  providing  on  the 
most  liberal  scale  everything  necessary  to  the  fullest  success  of  the 
undertaking.  At  the  end  of  six  months  the  interference  of  the  Inqui- 
sition stopped  the  work,  and  the  revisers  fled,  with  what  they  could 
save,  to  England.  But  Crumwell  was  not  to  be  thus  foiled.  He  dis- 
patched agents  to  Paris,  who  returned  not  only  with  the  presses  and 
types,  but  even  with  the  French  printers  ;  and  in  some  six  weeks  the 
work  was  again  progressing  on  English  soil.  This  event  gave  a  great 
impulse  to  the  press  and  especially  to  the  Bible  interest  in  the  king- 
dom ;  so  that  not  only  the  interrupted  edition  was  successfully  com- 
pleted, but  it  became  the  parent  of  many  others,  published  in  the 
heart  of  England.  In  the  year  1539  no  fewer  than  four  editions  of 
the  entire  Scriptures  in  English  were  issued  under  Crumwell's  imme- 
diate patronage.  During  this  same  period,  moreover,  he  was  encour- 
aging and  aiding  other  translators  to  contribute  their  versions  to  the 
general  stock  ;  thus  in  every  way  laboring  to  multiply  Bibles  among 
the  people. 

A  beautiful  picture  is  given  by  Strype,  in  his  Life  of  Cranmer,*  of 
the  influence  of  this  diffusion  and  free  use  of  the  Scriptures.  It  was  a 
jubilee  among  the  poor  of  England  when,  for  the  first  time  in  the 
national  history,  they  could  listen,  from  Sabbath  to  Sabbath,  to  "  the 
sweet  and  glad  tidings  of  the  Gospel,"  without  the  fear  of  prisons, 
the  scourge,  and  the  stake.  "It  is  wonderful,"  he  says,  "  to  see 
with  what  joy  this  Book  of  God  was  received,  not  only  among  the 

*  Page  91. 


172  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

learneder  sort,  and  those  that  were  noted  for  lovers  of  the  Reforma- 
tion, but  generally  all  England  over,  among  all  the  vulgar  and  com- 
mon people  ;  and  with  what  greediness  God's  word  was  read,  and 
what  resort  to  places  where  the  reading  of  it  was.  Everybody  that 
could  bought  the  book  and  busily  read  it  ;  or  got  others  to  read  it  to 
them,  if  they  could  not  themselves  ;  and  divers  more  elderly  people 
learned  to  read  on  purpose.  And  even  little  boys  flocked  among  the 
rest  to  hear  portions  of  the  Holy  Scriptures  read."  When  had  such 
an  intellectual  awakening  of  the  masses  ever  been  witnessed,  in  the 
whole  history  of  the  world,  as  the  fruit  of  Popish  policy  \  If  Crum- 
well  was  an  unprincipled  and  ambitious  man,  he  was,  nevertheless,  a 
wise  legislator,  and  a  true  benefactor  of  the  people. 

But  the  star  which  had  shot  so  rapidly  into  the  zenith,  had  long 
since  culminated,  and  now  suddenly  sunk  to  rise  no  more.  Henry's 
popish  counsellors  had  now  wholly  gained  his  ear  ;  and  Crumwell,  by 
forwarding  the  marriage  with  Anne  of  Cleves,  to  whom  the  King  had 
taken  an  insuperable  disgust,  had  incurred  his  master's  bitter  resent- 
ment. On  the  tenth  of  June  he  was  arrested  on  charge  of  high  trea- 
son, and  being  condemned  with  scarcely  the  decent  show  of  justice, 
a  fate,  alas,  too  well  merited  by  his  own  dealings  in  similar  cases,  he 
was  beheaded  in  the  Tower,  July  28,  1540. 

But  as  the  death  of  Tyndale  had  not  arrested  the  progress  of  this 
glorious  cause,  so  neither  did  the  fall  of  its  illustrious  patron.  New 
editions  of  the  English  Bible  still  issued  from  the  press,  and  Henry 
again  and  again  repeated  his  injunctions  for  its  use  in  the  public  ser- 
vice of  religion.  So  possessed  had  he  become  with  the  idea  of 
diffusing  it  among  his  people,  that  Bishops  Tunstal  and  Heath,  most 
bitter  opposers  of  vernacular  translation,  were  compelled  by  his 
authority  to  affix  their  names  as  editors  to  two  impressions  of  the 
great  Bible.  Immediately  after  the  publication  of  the  injunctions  of 
1540,  the  bloody-hearted  Bonner  set  up  six  large  Bibles  in  St.  Paul's 
for  the  accommodation  of  those  who  wished  to  read,  such  a  passport 
was  zeal  in  the  cause  at  that  time,  to  royal  favor.  The  eagerness  with 
which  the  people  embraced  this  opportunity  shows,  that  with  all  the 
Bibles  published,  little  had  yet  been  done  toward  supplying  the 
demand  for  the  word  of  God.  "  They  came,"  it  is  said,  "  instantly 
and  generally  to  hear  the  Scriptures  read.  Such  as  could  read  with  a 
clear  voice  often  had  great  numbers  round  them.  Many  sent  their 
children  to  school,  and  carried  them  to  St.  Paul's  to  hear."  Most 
interesting  must  have  been  the  groups  collected,  Sabbath  after  Sab- 
bath, in  the  crypt  of  that  ancient  cathedral.  The  great  folio  Bibles, 
scattered  at  convenient  distances  through  the  vast,  dim  interior,  each 


TRIUMPH   OF   THE    PRINCIPLE.  173 

chained  to  a  massive  pillar,  the  lamp  above  illuminating  the  reader 
and  the  black-letter  page  over  which  he  bent,  and  the  little  congrega- 
tion gathered  close  around,  formed  an  apt  emblem  of  the  condition  of 
England  generally  at  that  time. 

This  state  of  things  could  not  long  continue.  The  conflict  between 
light  and  darkness,  now  approaching  its  termination,  was  not  to  close 
without  another  desperate  struggle.  Henry,  in  "graciously"  vouch- 
safing to  his  subjects  the  boon  of  reading  the  Scriptures,  had  not 
properly  considered  the  danger  that,  while  so  doing,  they  might 
acquire  the  pernicious  habit  of  thinking  for  themselves.  Against  this 
he  had  taken  every  possible  precaution  by  connecting  with  permission 
to  read  and  hear  the  Bible,  strict  charges  to  avoid  all  comment  and 
discussion  in  respect  to  its  contents  ;  and  still  more  effectually  by  his 
Acts  "  to  establish  Christian  quietness  and  unity,"  of  which  especially 
the  one  in  1539,  known  as  the  Six  Articles,  or  more  appropriately,  as 
The  Whip  with  six  cords,  was  regarded  as  "an  end  of  all  contro- 
versy." The  doctrines  enjoined  by  this  statute  were,  1.  Transub- 
stantiation.  2.  Communion  under  both  kinds  not  necessary  to  salva- 
tion. 3.  Priests  may  not  marry,  by  the  law  of  God.  4.  Vows  of 
chastity'  (celibacy)  binding.  5.  Private  masses  to  be  retained. 
6.  Auricular  confession  useful  and  necessary.  Its  penalties  were  :  for 
denial  of  the  first  article,  death  at  the  stake,  without  privilege  of 
abjuration  ;  for  the  five  others,  death  as  a  felon,  or  imprisonment 
during  his  Majesty's  pleasure.*    * 

But  it  was  beyond  any  human  power  to  join  two  things  so  opposed 
in  their  natures  as  the  study  of  the  word  of  God  and  servile  submis- 
sion to  the  will  of  man,  in  matters  of  religious  faith.  It  is  at  the 
point  where  these  rival  influences  meet  in  conflict,  above  all  others, 
that  the  "  divinity  within  us"  vindicates  its  heavenly  origin,  and  the 
soul  of  the  unlettered  peasant,  or  of  the  timid  woman,  or  even  of  the 
little  child,  rises  up  in  the  conscious  dignity  of  a  child  of  God,  and 
claims  here  full  equality  with  the  proudest  monarch.  It  was  espe- 
cially in  regard  to  the  first  of  these  prescribed  articles,  Transubstanti- 
ation,  that  the  readers  of  the  Bible  found  it  impossible  to  harmonize 
their  views  with  those  of  the  King.     As  from  the  time  of  Wickliffe  to 

*  The  same  abject  Parliament  which  authorized  this  bloody  statute,  assumed 
and  made  it  law  that  Parliament  was  competent  to  condemn  to  death  persons 
accused  of  high  treason,  without  any  previous  trial  or  confession  ;  and  then,  by 
another  law,  passed  over  this  power  into  the  hands  of  Henry — enacting  that  "  the 
King,  with  advice  of  his  Council,  might  set  forth  proclamations,  with  pains  and 
penalties  in  them,  which  were  to  be  obeyed  as  if  made  by  Act  of  Parliament." 
He  was  thus  constituted  sole  proprietor  of  the  lives  and  property  of  his  subjects. 


174  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

the  separation  of  England  from  Rome,  the  rejection  of  this  doctrine 
had  distinguished  those  who  received  the  Scriptures  as  supreme 
authority,  from  those  who  acknowledged  the  supremacy  of  the  Church 
with  the  pope  for  its  head  ;  so  had  it  ever  since  distinguished  them 
from  those  who  acknowledged  the  supremacy  of  the  Church  with  the 
King  for  its  head.  It  was  the  test-point  in  the  trials  of  the  Lollards 
both  in  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries  ;  and  the  blood  of 
Bilney,  Bainham,  Frith,  and  many  others,  had  flowed  during  this  reign, 
as  oblations  to  this  monstrous  dogma.  So  late  as  1538,  the  learned 
and  pious  Lambert  had  perished  for  the  same  offence,  after  enduring 
a  trial  of  "  cruel  mocking,"  at  which  Henry  presided,  in  awful  state, 
clad  all  in  white — the  symbol  of  the  spotless  purity  of  his  faith  !  The 
passage  of  The  Six  Articles  was  the  signal  for  a  fresh  onset  upon 
the  adherents  of  the  Scriptures.  The  bishops,  who  were  charged 
with  the  office  of  carrying  the  statute  into  effect,  sprang  like 
unleashed  blood-hounds  on  the  prey.  Within  fourteen  days  they  had 
indicted  five  hundred  persons  in  London  alone  ;  and  it  was  clear  that 
the  number  of  offenders  would  soon  exceed  the  capacity  of  the  city 
prisons.  This  was  considerably  more  than  Henry  had  asked  of  the 
zeal  of  his  bishops  ;  for  he  wished  to  strike  a  wholesome  terror  into 
the  community  by  a  few  examples,  not  to  make  a  wholesale  massacre 
of  his  subjects.  By  the  advice  of  Crurnwell  (the  year  before  his 
death),  he  repeated  the  expedient  of  Henry  V.  in  a  similar  case  ;  and 
by  a  royal  pardon,  quashed  the  indictment,  so  that  of  the  five  hun- 
dred accused  not  one  was  brought  to  trial,  and  the  fiendish  attempt 
only  served  to  bring  out  more  distinctly  the  strength  of  the  party  it 
had  sought  to  crush.  Still  the  statute  remained  in  force,  and  the  war 
with  the  "  Sacramentarians"  was  waged,  if  not  on  so  bold  a  scale 
with  no  less  malignity,  to  the  close  of  Henry's  reign. 

At  length  the  King  seems  to  have  been  convinced  that  he  could  not 
establish  his  own  will  as  the  standard  of  faith  among  his  people, 
while  they  were  allowed  the  use  of  the  Bible.  It  was  therefore 
enacted  by  Parliament  in  1543,  "  that  all  manner  of  books  of  the  Old 
and  New  Testament  in  English,  of  Tyndale's  crafty,  false,  and  untrue 
translation,  should  by  authority  of  this  Act  clearly  and  utterly  be 
abolished  and  extinguished,  and  forbidden  to  be  kept  and  used  in 
this  realm,  or  elsewhere,  in  any  of  the  King's  dominions." 

And  farther,  "  that  no  manner  of  persons  after  the  first  of  October, 
should  take  upon  them  to  read  openly  to  others,  in  any  church  or  open  as- 
sembly, within  any  of  the  King's  dominions,  the  Bible  or  any  part  of  the 
Scripture  in  English  unless  he  was  so  appointed  thereunto  by  the  King 
or  by  any  ordinary,  on  pain  of  suffering  one  month's  imprisonment." 


TRIUMPH    OF   THE   PRINCIPLE.  1 75 

And  farther.  "  that  no  woman,  except  noble  women  and  gentle 
women,  might  read  the  Bible  to  themselves  alone  ;  and  no  artificers, 
apprentices,  journeymen,  servingmen,  of  the  degrees  of  yeomen,  hus- 
bandmen, or  laborers  were  to  read  the  Bible  or  New  Testament  to 
themselves  or  any  other,  privately  or  openly,  on  pain  of  one  month's 
imprisonment." 

How  vividly  do  these  enactments  mirror  the  times  ;  revealing  the 
wide-spread  and  inextricable  hold  which  the  Bible  had  gained  upon 
the  English  masses  !  When  "  apprentices,  journeymen,  servingmen, 
husbandmen,  and  laborers"  had  once  learned  to  read  the  Bible,  it 
was  certain  that  no  laws  could  recall  it  from  the  nation's  hands.  So 
the  imperious  monarch  found  it  ;  for  three  years  later  this  statute  was 
followed  by  another  still  more  sweeping,  viz.  "  that  from  hence- 
forth, no  man,  woman,  or  person,  of  what  estate,  condition,  or  degree 
he  or  they  shall  be,  shall,  after  the  last  day  of  August  next  ensuing, 
receive,  have,  take,  or  keep  in  his  or  their  possession,  the  text  of  the 
New  Testament  of  Tyndale's  or  Coverdale's,  nor  any  other  that  is 
permitted  by  the  Act  of  Parliament,  made  in  the  session  of  Parlia- 
ment holden  at  Westminster,  in  the  thirty-fourth  and  thirty-fifth  year 
of  his  Majesty's  most  noble  reign." 

Eight  days  after  the  passage  of  this  Act,  July  16,  1546,  the  heroic 
Anne  Askew  perished  with  three  companions  at  the  stake,  for  refusing 
to  acknowledge  Henry's  Popish  doctrine  of  the  Mass.  Plow  entirely 
the  reception  of  the  Scriptures,  as  supreme  authority,  was  identified 
with  rejection  of  the  special  dogmas  of  his  Roman-English  church,  is 
seen  from  the  dying  words  of  this  intrepid  woman  :  "  Finally,  I  be- 
lieve all  those  Scriptures  to  be  true  which  he  hath  confirmed  with  his 
most  precious  blood.  Yea,  and  as  St.  Paul  saith,  those  Scriptures 
are  sufficient  for  our  learning  and  salvation,  that  Christ  hath  left  here 
with  us  ;  so  that  I  believe  we  need  no  unwritten  verities  to  rule 
his  Church  with.  Therefore,  look,  what  he  hath  said  unto  me  with 
his  own  mouth  in  the  Holy  Gospel,  that  have  I  with  God's  grace 
closed  up  in  my  heart  ;  and  my  full  trust  is,  as  David  saith,  that  it 
shall  be  a  lantern  to  my  footsteps."  * 

On  the  28th  of  January,  1547,  Henry  VIII.  was  summoned  to 
meet  the  victims  of  his  personal  resentment  and  of  his  murderous 
religious  zeal,  a  fearful  host  !  at  the  bar  of  the  righteous  Judge.  His 
son  Edward  VI.,  the  English  Josiah,  succeeded  to  the  throne.  The 
stream  which  had  been  for  a  while  repressed  burst  forth  with  gath- 
ered strength  ;  and  this  short  reign,  less  than  six  and  a  half  years, 

*  Anderson,  vol.  ii.,  p.  198. 


176  ENGLISH    LILLE   TRANSLATION. 

was  signalized  by  at  least  fourteen  editions  of  the  whole  Bible,  and 
thirty-six  of  the  New  Testament.*  A  brief  interruption  succeeded 
this  period  of  prosperity,  during  the  reign  of  Mary.  But  from  that 
time  to  the  present,  a  period  of  three  hundred  years,  the  Anglo-Saxon 
race  has  never  seen  the  day  when  its  rich  and  its  poor  might  not  read 
in  their  own  tongue  wherein  they  were  born,  unmolested  by  Church 
or  State,  the  wonderful  works  of  God  ! 

THE       PRINCIPLE       HAD       TRIUMPHED. 

Wickliffe  gave  England  her  first  Bible  ;  Tyndale  her  first  Bible 
translated  from  the  original  Hebrew  and  Greek  Scriptures.  Thus 
was  fully  developed  the  great  Protestant  principle,  announced  by 
Wickliffe  nearly  a  century  and  a  half  before.  For  the  same  principle 
which  demands  the  Inspired  Word  as  the  sole  standard  of  religious 
faith,  demands  also  the  most  exact  representation  of  it  which  it  is 
possible  to  obtain.  This  is  obvious  on  a  moment's  thought.  Every 
translation,  however  able  and  honest,  is  but  a  human  reflection  of 
God's  revelation  of  truth,  and  as  such,  is  liable  to  the  imperfection 
which  attaches  to  everything  human.  The  philological  principles  of 
the  translator  may  sometimes  mislead  him,  or  his  religious  creed  may 
bias  his  judgment  of  words  ;  or,  in  process  of  time,  through  the  vicis- 
situdes of  language,  or  corruptions  in  the  Church,  renderings  which 
were  once  a  just  expression  of  the  original  may  come  to  convey  a 
false  meaning.  These  considerations  apply  with  double  force  to  a 
second-hand  translation,  every  remove  from  the  original  making  the 
conclusions  proportionably  unreliable.  Hence  Wickliffe's  version, 
venerable  as  the  first  English  Bible,  and  endeared  by  the  associations 
of  a  hundred  years  of  persecution,  was  at  once  set  aside  on  the 
appearance  of  another  drawn  directly  from  the  inspired  sources. 

But  to  accept  any  version,  to  stand  for  all  time  in  place  of  the 
sacred  originals,  was  contrary  to  the  spirit  of  primitive  English  Chris- 
tianity. The  glass  through  which  the  grand  outlines  of  truth  could 
be  discerned  was  dear  for  so  much  of  the  truth  as  it  revealed  ;  an- 
other, which  revealed  more,  was  dearer  still.  We  shall  observe  the 
influence  of  this  spirit  through  the  whole  subsequent  history  of  Bible 
translation  in  England.  The  Christian  scholars  of  that  age  were  fired 
with  a  generous,  sacred  emulation  to  render  the  People's  Bible  a  per- 
fect reflection  of  the  inspired  Word.  In  the  track  of  Tyndale's  noble 
version  sprang  up  a  long  line  of  revisions  and  translations,  which  were 
gratefully  accepted  by  the  Church  of  Christ  as  independent  witnesses, 

f  Anderson,  vol.  ii.,  p.  237. 


TRIUMPH    OF   THE   PRINCIPLE.  177 

of  whom  one  might  correct  the  errors  of  another,  and  whose  agreeing 
testimony  made  the  truth  doubly  certain. 

But  for  the  New  Testament  of  Tyndale  a  peculiar  honor  was 
reserved.-  It  furnished  not  only  the  basis,  but,  in  great  part,  the  sub- 
stance of  all  that  followed.  To  a  command  of  Greek  learning  sur- 
passed by  none  of  his  age,  Tyndale  added  those  higher  qualities  of  a 
translator  of  the  Scriptures  so  eminently  possessed  by  his  great  pre- 
decessor, Wickliffe,  a  mind  of  large  grasp  and  earnest  force,  illumi- 
nated by  a  heart  which  knew  but  the  single  sublime  aim  to  ascertain 
the  revealed  will  of  God  and  make  it  worthily  known  to  man.  A 
mind  so  qualified  for  the  task  could  not  but  express  itself  with  a  noble 
freedom,  a  simple  majesty,  in  harmony  with  the  inspired  utterances  of 
truth.  The  successors  of  Tyndale  recognized  in  his  translation  that 
impress  of  the  master  spirit  ;  and  while  they  corrected  its  errors  with- 
out scruple  by  the  increasing  light  of  sacred  scholarship,  they  trans- 
ferred the  body  of  it,  unchanged,  into  their  own  versions.  Like  a 
gem  repeatedly  new  cut  and  polished,  it  has  been  handed  down  from 
generation  to  generation,  the  most  precious  heirloom  of  the  English 
race  ;  and  we,  at  this  day,  read  in  large  portions  of  our  common  ver- 
sion the  very  words  with  which  Tyndale  clothed  the  Scriptures  for  the 
men  of  his  own  age,  in  those  times  of  conflict  and  of  blood.* 

*  "  In  the  originality  of  Tyndale  is  included  in  a  large  measure  the  originality 
of  our  English  Version.  .  .  .  His  influence  decided  that  our  Bible  should  be 
popular  and  not  literary,  speaking  in  a  simple  dialect,  and  that  so  by  its  simplicity 
it  should  be  endowed  with  permanence.  He  felt  by  a  happy  instinct  the  potential 
affinity  between  Hebrew  and  English  ideas,  and  enriched  our  language  and 
thought  forever  with  the  characteristics  of  the  Semitic  mind." — Wcstcott 's  Hist, 
of  the  Eng.  Bible,  pp.  210-n. — T.  J.  C. 


CHAPTER    XXIII. 

THREE    LATER    VERSIONS. 

Cover  dale  s  Bible. 

This  version  deserves  special  notice,  as  one  of  the  most  marked 
.ndications  of  the  new  impulse  in  favor  of  vernacular  translations 
effected  by  Tyndale's  early  labors.  It  claims  veneration,  too,  as  the 
first  translation  of  the  whole  Bible  circulated  in  England.  For, 
though  strictly  the  offspring  of  the  state  of  public  opinion  created  by 
his  greater  contemporary,  and  commenced  several  years  after  the  pub- 
lication of  Tyndale's  New  Testament  and  Pentateuch,  Coverdale's 
version  made  its  appearance  some  two  years  prior  to  Rogers'  edition 
of  Tyndale's  Bible. 

Miles  Coverdale  was  educated  at  Cambridge,  and  was  a  pupil  and 
intimate  friend  of  Barnes,  then  the  great  ornament  of  the  University 
in  liberal  learning,  and  the  chief  leader  at  Cambridge  of  the  religious 
party,  stigmatized  by  the  Romanists  as  "  the  new  learning."  When 
Barnes  was  arrested  by  Cardinal  Wolsey,  Coverdale  was  one  of  those 
who  stood  faithfully  by  their  teacher,  following  him  to  London,  and 
assisted  in  preparing  his  defence.  It  is  supposed  that  the  favor  of 
Crumwell,  then  a  protege  of  Wolsey,  secured  him  from  the  immediate 
consequences  of  so  bold  a  step.  But  in  1528,  having  been  accused  of 
preaching  against  the  confessional,  the  worship  of  images,  and  the 
doctrine  of  transubstantiation,  he  was  obliged  to  withdraw  from  Eng- 
land, and  his  steps  cannot  be  distinctly  traced  for  several  succeeding 
years.  Foxe  states  that  he  joined  Tyndale  on  the  continent,  and 
assisted  him  in  the  translation  of  the  Pentateuch  :  but  of  this  there 
is  no  reliable  proof. 

It  is  not  certain  at  what  time  he  commenced  his  own  translation. 
He  seems  to  have  been  moved  to  the  undertaking  bya  deep  feeling  of 
the  need  of  the  word  of  God  in  English  as  the  only  remedy  for  the 
moral  wretchedness  of  the  nation  ;  joined  to  a  fear  that  Tyndale 
would  not  be  able,  under  the  heavy  pressure  of  persecution,  to  com- 
plete the  great  work  which  he  had  begun.  Yet  such  was  his  modest 
estimate  of  his  own  qualifications  for  such  a  task,  that  he  would  not, 
he  avers,  have  assumed  the  responsibility,  but  for  the  urgent  solicita- 
tions of  those  with  whose  wishes  he  felt  bound  to  comply.     In  this, 


THREE    LATER   VERSIONS.  1 79 

doubtless,  he  refers  to  his  great  friend  and  patron,  Thomas  Crum- 
well. 

In  his  prologue  to  the  Christian  reader,  prefixed  to  his  translation, 
he  thus  explains  his  feelings  and  motives  : 

"  Considering  how  excellent  knowledge  and  learning  an  interpreter  of  Scripture 
ought  to  have  in  the  tongues,  and  pondering  also  mine  own  insufficiency  therein, 
and  how  weak  I  am  to  perform  the  office  of  translator,  I  was  the  more  loath  to 
meddle  with  this  work.  Notwithstanding,  when  I  considered  how  great  pity  it 
was  that  we  should  want  it  so  long,  and  called  to  remembrance  the  adversity  of 
them  which  were  not  only  of  ripe  knowledge,  but  would  also  with  all  their  hearts 
have  performed  that  they  begun,  if  they  had  not  had  impediment  ;  considering, 
I  say,  that  by  reason  of  their  adversity,  it  could  not  so  soon  have  been  brought 
to  an  end  as  our  most  prosperous  nation  would  fain  hawe  had  it ;  these  and  other 
reasonable  causes  considered,  I  was  the  more  bold  to  take  it  in  hand.  .  .  .  But 
to  say  the  truth  before  God,  it  was  neither  my  labor  nor  desire  to  have  this  work 
put  in  my  hand  ;  nevertheless  it  grieved  me  that  other  nations  should  be  more 
plenteously  provided  for  with  the  Scriptures  in  their  mother  tongue  than  we  ; 
therefore  when  I  was  instantly  required,  though  I  could  not  do  it  as  well  as  I 
would,  I  thought  it  yet  my  duty  to  do  my  best  and  that  with  a  good  will." 

It  has  been  argued  that  a  variety  of  translations  must  necessarily 
endanger  the  unity  of  the  faith.  He  meets  this  objection  by  an 
appeal  to  Christian  history  : 

"  Whereas  some  men  think  now  that  many  translations  make  division  in  the 
faith  and  in  the  people  of  God,  yet  it  is  not  so  ;  for  it  was  never  better  with  the 
congregation  of  God  than  when  every  church  almost  had  the  Bible  of  a  sundry 
translation.  Among  the  Greeks,  had  not  Origen  a  special  translation  ?  .  .  . 
Beside  the  seventy  interpreters,  is  there  not  the  translation  of  Aquila,  of  Theo- 
dotio,  of  Symachus  and  of  sundry  other  ?  Again,  among  the  Latin  men  thou 
findest  that  every  one  almost  used  a  special  translation  ;  for  insomuch  as  every 
bishop  had  the  knowledge  of  tongues,  he  gave  his  diligence  to  have  the  Bible  of 
his  own  translation.  .  .  .  Therefore  ought  it  not  to  be  taken  as  evil,  that 
such  men  as  have  understanding  now  in  our  time  exercise  themselves  in  the 
tongues,  and  give  their  diligence  to  translate  out  of  one  language  into  another. 
Yea,  we  ought  rather  to  give  God  thanks  therefor,  which  through  his  spirit 
stirreth  up  men's  minds  so  as  to  exercise  themselves  therein.  Would  God  it  had 
never  been  left  off  after  the  time  of  St.  Augustine  ;  then  should  we  never  have 
come  into  such  blindness  and  ignorance  and  into  such  errors  and  delu- 
sions. 

Seeing  then  that  this  diligent  exercise  of  translating  doth  so  much  good,  and 
edifyeth  in  other  languages,  why  should  it  do  evil  in  ours?  Doubtless  like  as  all 
nations,  in  the  diversity  of  speeches,  may  know  one  God  in  the  unity  of  faith, 
and  be  one  in  love,  even  so  may  diverse  translations  understand  one  another, 
and  that  in  the  head  articles  and  ground  of  our  most  blessed  faith,  though  they 
use  sundry  words.  Wherefore,  we  think  we  have  great  occasion  to  give  thanks 
unto  God  that  he  hath  opened  unto  his  Church  the  gift  of  interpretation  and  of 
printing,  and  that  there  are  at  this  time  so  many  which    with  such   diligence  and 


ISO  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

faithfulness  interpreteth  the  Scripture  to   the  honor  of  God  and  the  edifying  of 
his  people." 

Coverdale  only  claimed  for  his  version,  according  to  his  title  page, 
that  it  was  translated  out  of  "  Douch  and  Latin."  He  speaks  also 
of  having  had  by  him  five  several  translations,  and  of  having  "  fol- 
lowed his  interpreters."  He  was  a  respectable  Hebrew  scholar,  and 
doubtless  had  constant  reference  to  the  text  of  the  original  ;  but  he 
seems  not  to  have  felt  sufficient  reliance  on  his  own  scholarship  to 
venture  on  a  really  independent  translation.  For  the  same  cause  his 
version  compares  ill  with  Tyndale's  in  respect  to  style  ;  wanting  that 
bold  step  and  that  rich  expressiveness,  which  can  only  come  from 
the  actual  contact  of  the  translator's  mind  with  the  thoughts  he  is  to 
render  in  their  original  forms.  Yet  his  version  is,  in  the  main,  clear 
and  correct,  and  in  some  passages  shows  a  more  felicitous  rendering 
than  any  which  came  after.  Its  most  serious  fault  is  found  in  its  con- 
formity, in  some  important  particulars,  to  the  Latin  Vulgate. 

The  King's  license  had  been  obtained  for  this  Bible  ;  and  it  was 
dedicated  to  him  "  and  his  most  dearest,  just  wife,  Anne."  The  de- 
cline of  the  Queen's  influence,  and  her  fall  soon  after  its  appearance 
'in  England,  threw  a  cloud  for  awhile  over  the  enterprise.  But  after 
it  had  been  long  delayed  in  the  hands  of  the  bishops  to  whom  Henry 
had  committed  it  for  examination,  he  at  length  demanded  their 
opinion.  They  replied  that  it  had  many  faults.  "  But,"  said  he, 
"are  there  any  heresies  maintained  thereby?"  When  they  replied 
that  there  were  none  as  they  had  perceived — "  Then  in  God's  name," 
cried  the  impatient  monarch,  "  let  it  go  abroad  among  our  people."  * 
Subsequently,  there  is  reason  to  believe,  an  injunction  was  issued  by 
Crumwell  for  its  use  in  churches  ;  but  from  some  cause  this  never 
went  into  effect.  The  version  found,  however,  considerable  circula- 
tion, so  that  a  new  edition  was  published  the  next  year  ;  but  it  never 
received  very  general  favor. 

How  far  Coverdale  was  from  the  arrogance  and  envy  of  narrow 
minds,  is  seen  in  the  fact  that  he  entered  most  cordially  into  Crunv 
well's  plan,  in  1538,  of  republishing  Tyndale's  version  at  Paris,  and 
making  it  the  authorized  Bible  of  the  kingdom,  to  be  employed  in  the 
public  service  of  religion  to  the  exclusion  of  every  other.  He  himself 
went  to  Paris  as  reviser  and  corrector  of  the  press  ;  and  had  well 
nigh  lost  his  life  in  the  service  through  the  opposition  of  the  French 
Inquisitors.     The  work  was  completed  in  England  under  his  super- 

*  Bagster's  edition  of  Coverdale's  Bible,  Memoir,  p.  13. 


THREE   LATER  VERSIONS.  l8l 

vision,  and  was  known  as  the  Great  Bible,  "  appointed  to  be  read 
in  churches." 

In  1 55 1,  under  King  Edward,  Coverdale  was  made  Bishop  of 
Exeter.  During  Mary's  reign  he  was  obliged  to  seek  refuge  on  the 
continent  ;  but  on  the  accession  of  Elizabeth  he  returned  to  England, 
where  he  was  joyfully  received  by  the  friends  of  the  Reformation.  He 
would  now  have  regained  his  honors  but  for  his  conscientious  scruples 
in  regard  to  certain  church  ceremonies,  strenuously  insisted  on  by  the 
ruling  powers,  but  which,  in  his  view,  countenanced  dangerous  popish 
errors.     This  subject  will  be  more  particularly  noticed  hereafter. 

Even  the  rectory  which  had  been  given  to  Coverdale  as  a  provision 
for  his  old  age,  was  at  length  taken  from  him  for  his  steadfast  refusal 
to  obey  the  Act  of  Uniformity.  He  continued  to  preach,  however, 
and  the  name  of  Father  Coverdale  was  dear  to  the  common  people  as 
that  of  a  faithful,  honest  and  affectionate  teacher  of  the  way  of  salva- 
tion. He  died  in  honorable  poverty  May  26th,  1567,  ,  in  the  81st 
year  of  his  age.  "  He  was  buried  in  the  Church  of  St.  Bartholomew, 
behind  the  Royal  Exchange  ;  and  his  funeral  was  attended  by  multi- 
tudes who  reverenced  his  memory  and  bewailed  his  loss." 

His  writings  have  been  collected  and  published  by  the  Parker  So- 
ciety, and  form  an  interesting  monument  of  his  own  learning  and  piety, 
and  of  the  spirit  of  the  age  in  which  he  lived. 

Taverner  s  Bible. 

Among  the  young  men  of  Oxford  who  in  1526  were  immured  in 
Cardinal  College  cellar  for  reading  Tyndale's  New  Testament,  was 
one  by  the  name  of  Richard  Taverner.  He  was  especially  implicated, 
as  having  been  engaged  in  the  attempt  to  conceal  the  obnoxious  books 
under  the  floor  of  a  fellow-student's  room.  On  account,  however,  of 
his  skill  in  music,  he  was  soon  released  by  Wolsey,  who  was  a  lover 
of  all  elegant  accomplishments,  and  probably  thought  it  a  pity  to  spoil 
so  fine  a  voice  by  the  damp  air  of  the  cellar.  He  then  devoted  him- 
self to  the  study  of  law  ;  and  was  admitted  to  practice  at  the  Inner 
Temple. 

Though  not  distinguished  during  the  times  of  severe  persecution 
which  followed,  Taverner  seems  to  have  remained  a  faithful  adherent 
of  the  truth,  and  particularly  of  the  cause  of  Bible  translation.  In 
1534  he  became  attached  to  the  court,  under  the  patronage  of  Crum- 
well,  and  by  him  was  raised  to  an  office  of  some  responsibility  and 
honor.  It  was  while  he  was  still  occupying  this  post  that  his  patron, 
acting  on  his  now  ruling  idea  that  the  only  security  against  the  revival 


182  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

and  triumph  of  the  Popish  party  in  England  was  to  flood  the  country 
with  Bibles,  urged  Taverner,  who  was  an  expert  Greek  scholar,  to 
undertake  a  revision  of  Matthew's  Bible,  of  which  he  was  so  desirous 
to  publish  a  new  edition.  The  result  was  the  work  known  as  Tav- 
erner's  Bible  ;  which  was,  according  to  Bishop  Bale,  "  neither  a 
bare  revisal,  nor  yet  strictly  a  new  version,  but  something  between 
both."  His  dedication  to  the  King,  in  which  he  explains  his  reasons 
for  undertaking  the  work,  is  an  interesting  indication  of  the  spirit  of 
the  time  in  regard  to  Bible  translation  : 

"  Your  Grace  never  did  anything  more  acceptable  unto  God,  more  profitable 
unto  the  advancement  of  true  Christianity,  more  displeasant  to  the  enemies  of 
the  same,  and  also  to  your  Grace's  enemies,  than  when  your  Majesty  licensed 
and  willed  the  most  sacred  Bible,  containing  the  unspotted  and  lively  word  of 
God,  to  be  in  the  English  tongue  set  forth  to  his  Highness'  subjects.  It  cannot 
be  denied,  however  to  the  setting  forth  of  it  some  men  have  neither  undiligently 
nor  yet  unlearnedly  travailed,  that  some  faults  have  escaped  their  hands.  But  it 
is  a  work  of  so  great  difficulty  so  absolutely  to  translate  the  whole  Bible  that  it 
be  faultless,  I  fear  it  would  scarce  be  done  of  one  or  two  persons,  but  rather  re- 
quired both  a  deeper  conferring  of  many  learned  wits  together,  and  also  a  juster 
time  and  longer  leisure  ;  but  forasmuch  as  the  printers  hereof  were  very  desirous 
to  have  the  Bible  come  forth  as  faultless  and  emendently  as  the  shortness  of  time 
for  the  recognizing  of  the  same  would  require,  they  desired  me,  for  default  of  a 
better  learned,  diligently  to  overlook  and  peruse  the  whole  copy  ;  and  in  case  I 
should  find  any  notable  default  that  needed  correction,  to  amend  the  same  ac- 
cording to  the  true  exemplars,  which  thing  according  to  my  talent,  I  have  gladly 
done." 

The  work  was  published  with  King  Henry's  license,  in  whose  reign 
it  passed  through  several  editions.  It  continued  to  be  printed  occa- 
sionally as  late  as  155 1,  after  which  there  seems  to  have  been  no  far- 
ther demand  for  it,  and  it  disappears  from  the  list  of  versions  printed 
for  use  among  the  people. 

Cranmer' s  Bible ;    The  Anglican  Church. 

The  name  of  Cranmer  has  already  been  frequently  mentioned  in 
connection  with  the  early  history  of  Bible  translation  in  England. 
He  was  educated  at  Jesus  College,  Cambridge,  and  was  one  of  those 
young  men  selected  by  Wolsey  for  their  superior  talents  and  scholar- 
ship, to  adorn  his  new  college  at  Oxford.  But  at  the  risk  of  seriously 
offending  the  great  Cardinal,  Cranmer  declined  the  honor  and  the  in- 
creased emolument,  preferring  the  greater  quiet  and  independence  of 
his  Cambridge  home.  He  afterward  became  Divinity  Lecturer  in 
Magdalen  College,  and  was  there  held  in  the  highest  esteem  for  his 
learning  and  virtue. 


THREE   LATER   VERSIONS.  1 83 

While  yet  a  student,  Cranmer,  like  so  many  other  educated  young 
men  of  that  period,  was  led  by  his  own  spiritual  wants  to  an  earnest 
study  of  the  Scriptures  ;  and  from  that  time  the  written  word  of  God 
was  the  object  of  his  profoundest  veneration.  Being  appointed  by 
his  college  one  of  the  Examiners  of  candidates  for  degrees  as  Bachelors 
and  Doctors  of  Divinity,  he  was  accustomed  to  make  their  knowledge 
of  the  Scriptures  a  test  of  admission  ;  and  if  this  was  found  unsatis- 
factory, to  turn  them  back,  with  the  advice  to  spend  some  years  longer 
in  becoming  acquainted  with  the  book  "  wherein  the  knowledge  of 
God  and  the  grounds  of  divinity  lay."  The  Friars  were  particularly 
deficient  in  this  respecj,  their  sole  training  being  in  the  subtleties  of 
the  schoolmen  ;  and  Cranmer's  strictness  subjected  him  to  their  mor- 
tal enmity.  "Yet  some  of  the  more  ingenuous,"  says  Strype,* 
"  afterward  rendered  great  and  public  thanks  for  refusing  them  ; 
whereby,  being  put  upon  a  study  of  God's  word,  they  attained  to 
more  sound  knowledge  in  religion." 

From  his  elevation  to  the  Primacy,  in  1533,  his  influence  was 
steadily  directed  toward  the  object  of  securing  to  the  nation  at  large 
the  free  use  of  the  Bible  in  English.  His  earnest  but  unsuccessful 
efforts  to  enlist  the  bishops  in  the  work  have  already  been  noticed  ; 
as  well  as  the  generous  ardor  with  which  he  welcomed  Tyndale's  Bible 
in  1537,  and  his  exultation  when  permission  was  at  length  obtained 
from  the  capricious  Henry  that  all  his  subjects,  high  and  low,  rich 
and  poor,  might  read  the  word  of  God. 

In  1538,  the  first  reprint  of  Tyndale's  whole  Biblef  was  commenced 
in  Paris  and  finished  in  London,  under  the  oversight  of  Coverdale. 
In  1540,  another  was  published  under  the  immediate  superintendence 
of  Cranmer,  which,  on  account  of  the  critical  comparison  of  the 
translation  with  the  Greek  and  Hebrew  text  which  it  exhibits,  takes 
rank  as  an  important  contribution  to  the  work  of  Bible  translation. 
This  is  the  work  known  as  Cranmer's  Bible.  In  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, particularly,  the  rendering  is  often  an  improvement  on  that  of 
Tyndale  ;  though  elsewhere  it  shows  the  influence  of  unreliable 
guides  in  Hebrew  philology.  Whether  the  changes  were  from  Cran- 
mer himself,  or  from  scholars  employed  by  him,  is  not  known  ;  but 
his  learning  justifies  the  supposition  that  they  came  from  his  own 
hand.  Its  great  blemish  is  the  frequent  introduction  of  readings 
from  the  Vulgate  ;  though  these  are  distinguished  by  being  inclosed 
in  brackets,  and  printed  in  a  different  type.  The  version  of  the 
Psalms  given  in  Cranmer's  Bible  is  the  one  still  retained,  with  slight 

*  Life  of  Cranmer.  f  See  pp.  168,  169. 


1 84  ENGLISH   BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

variations,  in  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer  in  the  Church  of  England. 
The  Church  Psalter  does  not,  however,  distinguish  the  additions  from 
the  Vulgate;  in  the  fourteenth  Psalm,  for  example,  three  whole 
verses  are  there  inserted,  with  no  indication  that  they  do  not  belong 
to  the  Hebrew  text. 

The  prologue  to  this  Bible,  written  by  Cranmer  himself,  is  a  most 
earnest  appeal  to  the  laity  of  all  classes  to  improve  their  present  op- 
portunities of  becoming  acquainted  with  the  Holy  Scriptures,  as  the 
great  remedy  for  all  the  evils  of  human  life.  Even  among  them  were 
still  to  be  found  many  who  retained  the  prejudices  in  which  they  had 
been  trained  against  the  use  of  the  Bible  by.  the  laity,  and  who  re- 
fused to  read  or  hear  the  Scripture  in  the  vulgar  tongue. 

"  I  would  marvel  much,"  he  writes,  "  that  any  man  should  be  so  mad  as  to 
refuse,  in  darkness,  light  ;  in  hunger,  food  ;  in  cold,  fire  :  .  .  .  save  that  I  con- 
sider how  much  custom  and  usage  may  do.  So  that  if  there  were  a  people,  as 
some  write,  de  cymeiiis,  which  never  saw  the  sun,  by  reason  that  they  be  situated 
far  toward  the  north  pole,  and  be  inclosed  and  overshadowed  with  high  moun- 
tains ;  it  is  credible  and  like  enough,  that  if,  by  the  power  and  will  of  God,  the 
mountains  should  sink  down  and  give  place  so  that  the  sun  might  have  entrance 
to  them,  at  first  some  of  them  would  be  offended  therewith.  And  the  old  prov- 
erb affirmeth  that  after  tillage  of  corn  was  first  found,  many  delighted  more  to 
feed  of  mast  and  acorns,  wherewith  they  had  been  accustomed,  than  to  eat  bread 
made  of  good  corn." 

After  quoting  at  large  from  St.  Chrysostom  to  prove  that  the  laity, 
as  those  who  are  most  exposed  to  the  trials  and  temptations  of  life, 
being  "  in  the  midst  of  the  sea  of  worldly  wickedness,  standing  in  the 
forefront  of  the  host,  and  nighest  to  the  enemy,"  need  the  means  of 
defence  and  succor  ready  at  hand,  far  more  than  those  who  lead  a  life 
of  retirement  and  spiritual  meditation,  he  proceeds  : 

"  Now  if  I  should  in  like  manner  bring  forth  what  the  self-same  doctor  speak- 
eth  in  other  places,  and  what  other  doctors  and  writers  say  concerning  the  same 
purpose,  I  might  seem  to  you  to  write  another  Bible,  rather  than  make  a  Preface 
to  the  Bible.  Wherefore,  in  few  words  to  comprehend  the  largeness  and  utility 
of  the  Scriptures,  how  it  containeth  fruitful  instruction  and  erudition  for  every 
man  ;  if  anything  be  necessary  to  be  learned,  of  the  holy  Scriptures  we  may  learn 
it  ;  if  falsehood  shall  be  reproved,  thereof  we  may  gather  wherewithal  ;  if  any- 
thing to  be  corrected  and  amended,  if  there  need  any  exhortation  or  consolation, 
of  the  Scriptures  we  may  well  learn  it  In  the  Scriptures  be  the  fat  pastures  of 
the  soul — therein  is  no  venomous  meat,  no  unwholesome  thing  ;  they  be  the  very 
dainty  and  pure  feeding.  .  .  .  Here  all  manner  of  persons — men  and  women, 
young,  old,  learned,  unlearned,  rich,  poor,  priests,  laymen,  lords,  ladies,  officers, 
tenants,  and  mean  men  ;  virgins,  wives,  widows,  lawyers,  merchants,  artificers, 
husbandmen,  and  all  manner  of  persons,  of  what  estate  or  condition  soever  they 
be — may  in  this  book  learn  all  things  what  they  ought  to  believe,  what  they  ought 


THREE   LATER   VERSIONS.  185 

to  do,  and  what  they  should  not  do,  as  well  concerning  Almighty  God,  as  also 
concerning  themselves,  and  all  other." 

These  were  wonderful  words  to  be  heard,  in  that  day,  from  the 
highest  dignitary  of  the  English  Church.  The  minute  specification  of 
various  classes  and  conditions  is  not  without  important  meaning  ; 
and  recognizes  a  principle  far  in  advance  of  the  opinions  then  gener- 
ally current  among  the  great.  The  good  Archbishop  seems  resolved 
that  no  individual  shall  feel  himself  excluded  or  excused  from  the 
new-spread  feast  for  lack  of  a  special  invitation.  This  is  Cranmer's 
true  glory,  his  fervent  love  for  the  inspired  word,  and  his  unwearied 
efforts  to  make  the  divine  gift  common  alike  to  all.  Here  he  showed 
himself  the  true  Christian,  the  true  Protestant. 

It  is,  moreover,  greatly  to  his  honor  that  his  anxiety  to  strengthen 
the  newly  established  order  of  things  was  allowed  to  affect  so  little 
his  renderings  of  Scripture.  A  few  ecclesiastical  terms,  which  unfor- 
tunately Tyndale  had  perpetuated,  in  contrariety  to  his  general  prin- 
ciples of  translation,  were  likewise  retained  by  Cranmer.  But  the 
word  "  church"  occurs  only  once  in  his  version,  and  then  merely  as 
the  designation  of  a  sacred  building,  (Acts  xix.,  37),  for  which  also  he 
had  the  authority  of  Tyndale  and  Coverdale.  In  all  other  cases,  he 
uniformly  renders  ecclesia  by  the  noble  and  intelligible  word  ' '  congre- 
gation." 

The  year  1542  furnished  an  index,  of  a  novel  character,  to  the  un- 
wearied efforts  of  the  popish  prelates  to  frustrate  his  efforts  in  behalf 
of  the  Bible  ;  namely,  an  order  from  the  King  for  a  revision,  by  the 
bishops,  of  the  authorized  translation  of  the  New  Testament.  When 
the  people  were  destitute  of  a  Bible,  Cranmer  had  vainly  tried  to  en- 
list them  in  the  work  of  preparing  one  ;  now,  when  the  work  had  been 
carried  through,  against  their  most  strenuous  efforts,  they  were  ready 
to  step  in  and  do  what  they  could  to  mar  it.  Sorely  against  his  will, 
the  Archbishop  was  obliged  to  apportion  the  task  among  them  ;  and 
then  followed  meeting  after  meeting  to  decide  on  the  plan  of  execu- 
tion. At  the  sixth  meeting,  Gardiner — who,  no  doubt,  was  the  con- 
triver of  the  scheme — brought  in  a  list  of  above  one  hundred  Latin 
words,*  "  which  for  their  genuine  and  native  meaning,  and  for  the 
majesty  of  the  matter  in  them  contained,"  he  desired  might  be  re- 
tained untranslated,  or  Englished  with  the  least  possible  alteration,  in 
the  new  revision.  This  design,  if  effected,  would  have  given  the  peo- 
ple a  Bible  in  name,  while  it  deprived  them  of  much  of  its  substance. 
"  Wanting,"  says  Fuller,  "  the  power  to  keep  the  light  of  the  Word 

*  Quoted  at  length  in  Fuller's  Church  History,  vol.  ii.,  p.  10S. 


1 86  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

from  shining,  he  sought,  out  of  policy,  to  put  it  in  a  dark  lantern." 
Thus  too,  according  to  the  old  historian,  he  sought  "  to  teach  the 
laity  their  distance  ;  who,  though  admitted  into  the  outer  court  of 
common  matter,  were  yet  debarred  entrance  into  the  holy  of  holies  of 
these  mysterious  expressions,  reserved  only  for  the  understanding  of 
the  high  priest  to  pierce  into  them.  Moreover,  this  made  Gardiner 
not  only  tender,  but  fond  to  have  these  words  continued  in  kind  with- 
out translation,  because  the  profit  of  the  Romish  Church  was  deeply 
in  some  of  them  concerned.  Witness  the  word  '  penance,'  which,  ac- 
cording to  the  vulgar  sound,  contrary  to  the  original  sense  thereof, 
was  a  magazine  of  will-worship,  and  brought  in  much  gain  to  the 
priests,  who  were  desirous  to  keep  that  word,  because  that  word  kept 
them."  Cranmer,  having  obtained  this  evidence  of  the  purpose  they 
had  in  view,  made  Henry  fully  acquainted  with  it  ;  and  as  the  result, 
was  empowered  to  inform  the  Convocation,  that  "  it  was  the  King's 
will  and  pleasure"  that  the  examination  of  the  entire  translation  of 
the  Old  and  New  Testaments  should  be  committed  to  the  Universi- 
ties. Thus  the  work  was  rescued  from  the  hands  of  its  enemies  ,  but 
it  does  not  appear  that  the  Universities  were  ever  troubled  with  it. 

And  yet,  with  all  this  zeal  for  faithful  vernacular  translations, 
Cranmer  only  half  understood  the  principles  of  Protestantism.  With 
one  hand  he  dispersed  Bibles,  without  stint  or  restriction,  among  the 
people  ;  with  the  other  he  laid  yokes  on  their  necks,  hardly  more 
tolerable  than  that  which  their  fathers  wore,  for  it  equally  denied  the 
supremacy  of  the  individual  conscience.  The  Romish  bishops  had 
punished  dissent  from  their  Church  ;  and  this  was  accounted  wrong, 
because  it  was  the  Church  of  antichrist.  Protestant  bishops  punished 
dissent  from  their  Church  ;  and  this  was  right,  because  it  was  the  true 
Church  of  Christ  !  It  is  amusing,  though  humiliating,  to  read  the 
records  furnished  by  the  admiring  Strype,  of  the  contests  between 
Cranmer  and  the  stout  Bishop  of  Winchester,  during  the  reign  of 
Edward  VI.  Gardiner  had  been  a  sad  thorn  to  the  pious  Primate  in 
the  previous  reign  ;  but  now  the  latter  had  it  all  his  own  way,  and 
he  resolved  to  reduce  the  turbulent  prelate  to  conformity  with  the 
true  faith.  When  he  could  not  be  convinced  by  argument,  he  was 
sent  to  the  Fleet.  Being  "  somewhat  straightly  handled,"  he  com- 
plained to  the  Lord  Protector  that  he  was  allowed  no  friend  or  ser- 
vant, no  chaplain,  barber,  tailor  nor  physician  ;  "  a  sign,"  says  the 
sagacious  biographer,  "  that  he  gave  them  high  provocation."  This 
was  in  1547. 

After  a  three  years'  imprisonment  "  it  was  now  thought  time,"  as 
is   quietly  remarked,  "  that  he  be  spoken  withal."     Accordingly,  he 


THREE    LATER   VERSIONS.  1 87 

was  brought  up  before  the  King's  council,  and  articles  of  submission 
proposed  for  his  subscription,  condemning  all  the  essential  doctrines 
and  practices  of  Romanism,  and  approving  whatever  bad  been  done 
during  the  previous  and  present  reigns  for  their  suppression.  We 
cannot  but  respect  the  man  who,  with  liberty  and  honor  on  one  side,* 
and  disgrace  and  prison  on  the  other,  could  maintain  with  such  stead- 
fast spirit  his  right  to  what  he  believed  the  truth.  "  After  a  great 
deal  of  pains  and  patience,"  on  the  part  of  the  Archbishop  and  his 
fellow-commissioners,  maintained  unavailingly  through  two  and 
twenty  sessions,  the  refractory  bishop  was  condemned  to  a  still  stricter 
confinement,  in  a  meaner  prison,  denied  all  intercourse  with  his 
friends,  and  the  use  of  books,  pen,  ink,  and  paper  ;  "  that  he  may 
not  write  his  detestable  purposes,  but  be  sequestered  from  all  confer- 
ences, and  from  all  means  that  may  serve  him  to  practice  in  any 
way."  From  this  imprisonment  he  was  not  released  till  the  accession 
of  Mary  ;  and  though  we  must  detest  the  fiendish  cruelty  of  his  spirit, 
we  cannot  much  wonder  that  when  his  turn  came  to  be  in  power,  "  he 
sufficiently  wracked  his  revenge  against  the  good  Archbishop,  and  the 
true  religion." 

Nor  was  such  severity  confined  to  Papists.  The  pious  and  zealous 
Hooper,  Bishop  elect  of  Gloucester,  fully  agreed  with  Cranmer  as  to 
doctrine  and  discipline  ;  only  it  went  against  his  conscience  to  wear 
the  vestments  identified  with  the  superstitious  and  idolatrous  rites  of 
Popery.  Arguments  proved  equally  fruitless  with  him  as  with  Gardi- 
ner ;  and  on  the  report  of  the  Archbishop,  "  that  Hooper  could  not 
be  brought  to -any  conformity,  but  rather  persevered  in  his  obstinacy, 
coveted  to  prescribe  orders  and  necessary  laws  to  his  head,"  the  uni- 
versal panacea  was  administered  by  committing  him  to  the  Fleet.  We 
wish  it  could  be  recorded  that  conscience  proved  as  unyielding  in  this 
instance  as  in  the  other.  But  after  a  time  spent  in  prison,  Hooper 
learned  to  appreciate  the  arguments  of  his  brethren,  and  exchanged 
his  uncomfortable  lodgings  in  the  Fleet  for  the  bishopric  and  its  vest- 
ments. 

But  there  were  other  cases  which  more  nearly  touch  our  sympa- 
thies, because  infringing,  under  the  sacred  name  of  the  Bible,  on  the 
religious  liberties  of  the  common  people.  We  are  told  that  "  now 
that  the  liberty  of  the  Gospel  began  to  be  allowed,  (!)  divers  false  and 
unsound  opinions  began  to  be  vented  with  it."  The  Archbishop  felt 
it  incumbent  on  him  to  put  a  stop  to  these  disorders,  by  con  venting 

*  Nothing  but  this  hypocritical  subscription  was  required  as  the  condition  of 
full  restoration  to  his  bishopric  and  a  place  in  the  King's  council. 


1 88  ENGLISH   BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

several  "  heretics"  before  him,  and  compelling  them  to  take  a  public 
oath  of  recantation,  with  such  farther  penance  as  seemed  to  him  ad- 
visable. One  man,  for  maintaining  that  the  regenerate  could  not  sin, 
and  other  notions  of  like  character,  was  required — besides  signing  an 
abjuration,  and  a  promise  "  never  to  hold,  teach,  or  believe  the  said 
errors  or  damned  opinions  above  rehearsed — to  procure  two  sureties 
in  five  hundred  pounds  (equal  at  least  to  twenty  thousand  dollars)  for 
his  attendance  the  Sunday  following  at  Paul's  Cross,  and  there  to 
stand  penitently  before  the  preacher,  all  the  time  of  sermon,  with  a 
faggot  on  his  shoulder."  Michael  Thombe,  a  butcher,  was  comment- 
ed, for  holding  "  that  Christ  took  not  the  flesh  of  the  Virgin,  and  that 
the  baptism  of  infants  is  not  profitable  because  it  goeth  before  faith  ; 
but,  "  by  submission  and  penance,  he  escaped  !" 

There  was  another  class  of  offenders,  as  described  by  Strype — 
"  some  that  took  the  liberty  of  meeting  together  in  certain  places, 
and  there  to  propound  odd  questions,  and  vent  dangerous  doctrines 
and  opinions."  As  a  specimen  of  these  disorderly  proceedings,  it  is 
mentioned  that  "  a  number  of  persons,  a  sort  of  Anabaptists,  about 
sixty,  met  in  a  house  on  a  Sunday,  in  the  parish  of  Booking,  in 
Essex  ;  where  arose  among  them  a  great  dispute,  '  Whether  it  were 
necessary  to  stand  or  kneel,  barehead  or  covered,  at  prayers  ? '  and 
they  concluded  the  ceremony  not  to  be  material  ;  but  that  the  heart 
before  God  was  required,  and  nothing  else.  Such  other  like  warm 
disputes  there  were  about  Scripture."  Similar  assemblies  were  like- 
wise held  in  Kent.  "  These,"  says  Strype,  "  were  looked  on  as  dan- 
gerous to  Church  and  State."  Nine  of  these  from  Bocking,  "  being 
cowherds,  clothiers,  and  such  like  mean,  people,"  and  others  from 
Kent,  having  been  arrested  and  brought  before  the  council,  confessed 
the  cause  of  their  assembly  to  be  for  to  talk  of  the  Scriptures. ' ' 
They  also  admitted  that  they  had  refused  the  communion  for  two 
years.  Their  grounds  for  so  doing  being  judged  erroneous  and  super- 
stitious, "  five  of  them  were  committed  to  prison,  and  seven  bound  in 
recognizance  to  the  King  in  forty  pounds  each  man." 

But  "  the  mild  Archbishop,"  as  he  is  called  par  excellence,  could 
not  always  satisfy  his  conscience  with  fines  and  prisons.  An  ignorant 
young  woman,  named  Joan  Bocher,  who  held  the  heresy  that  Christ, 
being  sinless,  could  not  have  partaken  of  the  flesh  of  the  Virgin,  who 
was  conceived  in  sin,  withstood  all  the  efforts  put  forth  for  her  con- 
version. The  Archbishop,  as  well  as  Ridley  and  Latimer,  labored 
long  and  earnestly  for  this  object  ;  but  at  length  gave  over  the  at- 
tempt, and  she  was  condemned  to  the  flames.  When  the  sentence 
was  brought   by  Cranmer  to  the  young  King  for  signature,  he  long 


THREE   LATER   VERSIONS.  1 89 

refused  ;  and  when  a^  last  he  yielded,  weeping,  to  the  authority  and 
arguments  of  his  venerated  instructor  in  religion,  it  was  with  the 
solemn  declaration,  "  If  there  is  wrong  in  this  matter  it  rests  wholly 
on  your  hands  !"  In  the  year  155 1,  a  Dutchman  suffered  the  same 
death  by  Cranmer's  authority,  for  denying  the  divinity  of  Christ. 

Such  were  the  measures  to  which  good  men  were  driven  for  the  sup- 
port of  that  State  church  which  has  been  glorified  as  the  embodiment 
of  the  English  Reformation.  But  these  measures  never  grew  out  of 
that  inward  divine  life  which  the  Spirit  of  God,  through  God's  own 
word,  had  awakened  among  the  people  of  England.  They  were,  in- 
deed, the  legitimate  fruits  of  the  ecclesiastical  system  which  royal  des- 
potism had  forced  upon  that  noble  work  ;  or,  in  Milton's  splendid 
language,  "  the  verminous  and  polluted  rags,  dropt  over-worn  from 
the  toiling  shoulders  of  Time,  deformedly  quilted  and  interlaced  with 
the  entire,  the  spotless,  and  undecaying  robe  of  truth."  The  perse- 
cuting spirit  which  so  sadly  defaces  the  history  of  English  Protestant- 
ism, is  due  not  to  Christianity,  nor  even,  primarily,  to  the  men  who 
have  been  the  instruments  of  oppression.  It  belonged  to  the  system 
which  constituted  the  civil  ruler  the  controller,  ex  officio,  of  man's 
relations  to  God.  When  nonconformity  to  a  certain  Church  is  made 
an  offence  against  the  constitution  of  the  State,  it  must,  of  necessity, 
be  punished  by  the  civil  sword.  Nor  can  any  change  of  organization, 
nor  of  men,  nor  of  times,  effect  any  real  alteration  in  the  working  of 
this  system.  Catholic  Spain,  Protestant  England,  Calvinistic  Geneva, 
Puritan  New  England,  Lutheran  Germany,  all  bear  witness  to  this 
assertion.  The  stake  and  the  gibbet  may,  indeed,  be  banished  by  the 
advancing  light  of  Christian  civilization  ;  but  other  forms  of  oppres- 
sion, suited  to  the  mildness  and  proprieties  of  the  age,  will  continue 
to  attest  that  a  State  religion,  in  its  very  nature,  is  a  denial  of  the 
supremacy  of  conscience,  and  as  such,  is  and  must  be  an  Inquisition 
and  a  despotism. 

Cranmer,  in  his  efforts  to  consolidate  the  Anglican  Church,  was 
actuated,  no  doubt,  by  pious  and  patriotic  motives.  To  concentrate 
ecclesiastical  power  in  the  hands  of  the  King  of  England  was  his  ex- 
pedient to  secure  it  from  reverting  to  the  Pope  of  Rome  ;  as  to  make 
the  doctrines  of  Protestantism  the  State  religion  of  England,  was  for- 
ever to  exclude  the  teachers  of  Popery,  who  were  also  the  sworn 
enemies  of  the  Bible  for  the  people.  To  make  sure  of  this  end,  and 
that  no  loophole  of  access  might  be  left  to  the  abettors  of  Romanism, 
required  that  the  lines  of  orthodoxy  should  be  sharply  defined  ;  and 
especially,  that  no  inward  disagreement  should  cause  a  weak  and 
broken  front  to  be  presented  to  the  enemy.     Hence  conformity  be- 


I90  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

came  his  one  idea  ;  carried  even  to  the  extreme  requiring  unity  in  out- 
ward forms  and  ceremonies,  and  in  the  cut  and  color  of  garments,  no 
less  than  in  the  belief  of  the  essential  truths  of  Christianity. 

But  whatever  may  be  its  faults,  the  Church  which  recognizes  the 
people's  right  to  the  unrestricted  use  of  the  Bible  in  their  mother 
tongue,  differs  from  one  which  denies  this,  as  light  from  darkness. 
If  it  promulgates  error,  it  also  administers  the  antidote  ;  if  it  claims  a 
tyranny  over  conscience,  it  deprives  no  man  of  the  charter  wherein  he 
may  read  his  inalienable  title  to  judge  for  himself  how  he  shall  wor- 
ship God.  Accordingly,  we  find  that  notwithstanding  the  indefatiga- 
ble endeavors  of  Archbishop  Cranmer  and  his  successors  to  enforce 
"  uniformity  and  quietness  in  religion,"  the  spirit  of  independent 
thought  increased  among  the  people,  and  Puritanism  grew  rife  in  the 
very  bosom  of  the  Church. 

While,  therefore,  we  must  regret  the  mistaken  policy  of  Cranmer, 
which  did  so  much  to  entail  on  England  the  burden  under  which  she 
has  groaned  three  hundred  years,  which  has  cost  so  much  of  her  best 
blood,  and  exiled  or  disfranchised  so  many  of  her  most  loyal  chil- 
dren ;  we  must  still  remember  him  with  gratitude  as  one  of  the  earli- 
est advocates  of  vernacular  translation,  and  especially  as  that  one  who 
first  obtained  from  the  civil  power  the  admission  of  the  Bible  into  the 
public  service  of  religion,  and  liberty  for  all,  without  respect  to  class 
or  condition,  to  read  it  for  themselves.  This  was  the  vital  point. 
This  granted,  and  the  enjoyment  of  that  religious  liberty  and  equality 
which  the  Bible  teaches,  was  but  a  question  of  time  and  patience. 

The  reign  of  Edward  VI.,  during  which  Cranmer  wielded  almost 
unbounded  ecclesiastical  power,  is  a  period  illustrious  in  the  annals  of 
the  Bible.  With  all  the  Primate's  fondness  for  legislating  in  matters 
of  religion,  he  wisely  left  the  word  of  God  to  take  care  of  itself,  ex- 
cept so  far  as  to  give  his  warmest  encouragement  to  all  efforts  for  mul- 
tiplying and  diffusing  it.  The  fifty  editions  of  Bibles  and  New  Testa- 
ments which  appeared  during  this  brief  reign,  in  answer  to  the 
spontaneous  popular  demand,  are  a  greater  glory  to  Cranmer  than  if 
they  had  all  been  issued  in  obedience  to  his  authority. 

In  another  respect  also  we  see  his  true  liberality  in  reference  to  the 
Scriptures.  Four  versions,  and  these  in  editions  varying  more  or  less 
among  themselves,  were  before  the  public,  and  one  of  these  was  his 
own.  Yet  there  is  no  trace  that  his  vast  influence  as  Primate  was 
used  to  gain  for  the  latter  any  preference  in  the  public  favor.  Dur- 
ing these  six  and  a  half  years  there  were  published,  as  nearly  as  can 
be  ascertained,  of  Coverdale's  Bible,  two  of  the  whole  Bible  and  two 
of  the  New  Testament  ;  of  Taverner's  two  ;  of  Cranmer's,  seven  of 


THREE   LATER   VERSIONS.  I9I 

the  whole  Bible  and  eight  of  the  New  Testament  ;  of  Tyndale's  five 
of  the  whole  Bible  (in  eight  distinct  issues,  commonly  reckoned  as 
separate  editions)  and  of  the  New  Testament  twenty-four.  Besides 
these,  were  two  or  three  editions  of  the  latter  published  with  Eras- 
mus' Latin  New  Testament  in  parallel  columns.  It  is  interesting  to 
see  from  this  Comparison  that  Tyndale's  New  Testament  was  still  the 
favorite  of  the  common  mind  ;  while  the  change  in  the  character  of 
the  ruling  influences  is  marked  by  the  fact  that  the  long-proscribed 
name  of  the  translator  appeared  in  full  on  the  title  page  of  at  least 
fifteen  editions. 


CHAPTER   XXIV. 

THE    REIGN    OF    TERROR. 

Again  the  scene  was  changed.  A  stern  adherent  of  the  Church  of 
Rome  now  sat  on  the  throne  of  England,  in  place  of  the  gentle  and 
pious  Edward. 

It  is  not  strange  that  the  long  series  of  disappointments,  mortifica- 
tions, and  sorrows,  which  had  consumed  the  youth  and  early  woman- 
hood of  Mary,  should  have  tinged  her  spirit  with  bitterness  and 
gloom.  A  sadder  fate  few  have  experienced.  Commencing  life  with 
the  most  brilliant  prospects,  accustomed  almost  in  infancy  to  the 
pomp  and  adulation  of  an  expectant  queen,  sought  in  marriage  by  the 
greatest  princes  of  Europe  ;  before  the  age  of  twenty-five  she  saw  the 
marriage  of  which  she  was  born  declared  incestuous,  her  illustrious 
mother  ignominiously  supplanted,  and  herself  studiously  degraded  by 
her  own  father.  In  poverty  and  neglect,  often  in  jeopardy  of  her  life 
from  her  father's  jealousy  of  one  he  had  so  deeply  injured,  she  wore 
away  ten  weary  years.  With  the  sense  of  personal  wrong  was  min- 
gled indignation  and  horror  at  the  sacrilegious  repudiation  of  the 
ancient  faith,  so  intimately  connected  with  it.  It  required  great 
strength  and  elasticity  of  nature,  such  as  Elizabeth  possessed,  or 
great  Christian  magnanimity,  to  come  unharmed  out  of  such  a  trial. 
Mary  had  neither.  Narrow  in  mind,  melancholic  in  temper,  the 
devotee  of  a  faith  which  nurtures  the  darker  passions,  the  fearful 
tempest  of  life  had  but  withered  and  chilled  her  ;  and  she  came  to  the 
throne  yet  young,  only  thirty-six,  a  blighted  woman,  a  bigoted  and 
morose  zealot.  The  memory  of  the  humiliations  and  terrors  to  which 
she  had  been  subjected,  but  fed  the  fierce  flame  of  religious  fanati- 
cism, and  her  power  as  Queen  was  valued  only  as  the  instrument  to 
avenge  herself  and  her  religion. 

Mary  entered  London  on  the  3d  of  August,  1553.  Her  first  act 
was  to  release  and  reinstate  "  her  bishops,"  as  she  emphatically  styled 
Gardiner,  Bonner,  and  Tunstal,  who  emerged  from  their  six  years' 
incarceration,  unsubdued  in  spirit,  and  thirsting  for  revenge.  The 
former,  who  possessed  in  an  eminent  degree  the  pride,  the  talent,  and 
the  craft  which  characterize  the  higher  class  of  the  Romish  priest- 
hood, was  made  Lord  Chancellor  ;    Bonner,   a  ferocious  bully,   not 


THE   REIGN   OF   TERROR.  I93 

above  playing  the  hypocrite  when  occasion  offered,  and  insatiable  in 
his  thirst  for  blood,  became  one  of  Mary's  most  influential  counsellors, 
and  her  chief  inquisitor.  But  few  days  were  suffered  to  elapse  after 
Edward's  funeral,  when  the  Queen  re-inaugurated  the  reign  of 
Obscurantism,  that  twin  sister  of  Popery,  by  an  "  Inhibition"  against 
reading  or  teaching  any  Scriptures  in  the  churches,  and  printing  any 
books.  By  the  15th  of  September,  Cranmer,  Ridley,  Latimer, 
Hooper,  Bradford,  and  other  distinguished  reformers,  were  shut  up  in 
the  Tower,  while  John  Rogers  was  made  prisoner  in  his  own  house, 
and  forbidden  to  speak  to  any  person  out  of  his  own  family.  In  the 
Parliament  which  met  in  October,  Cranmer  was  attainted  of  high 
treason  ;  and  a  bill  was  passed  re-affirming  Henry's  marriage  with 
Katherine,  the  preamble  to  which  recognized  the  late  Archbishop  as 
the  sole  instigator  of  the  divorce.  Had  this  been  true,  it  would  be 
hard  to  blame  Mary  for  singling  him  out  as  a  special  object  of  resent- 
ment. But  both  Bonner  and  Gardiner  had  been  zealous  agents  in 
the  divorce,  long  before  Cranmer  became  an  actor  in  it,  and  the 
latter  was  a  member  with  Cranmer  of  the  commission  which 
pronounced  the  marriage  with  Katherine  unlawful.  Both  of  them 
had  also,  with  all  show  of  cordiality,  acknowledged  the  King's  suprem- 
acy. Nay,  Mary  herself  had  conceded  both  points,  for  the  sake  of 
regaining  position  and  influence  at  court.  Her  servile  letter  to  her 
father  on  the  death  of  Anne  Boleyn,  and  the  yet  more  servile  articles 
which  she  consented  to  subscribe,  abjuring  her  religion  and  with  her 
own  hand  endorsing  the  foul  stigma  which  had  been  cast  upon  her 
birth,*  should  have  forever  prevented  her  from  making  the  like  acts 
grounds  of  accusation  against  others.  But  all  this  shows  that  her 
conduct  was  governed  not  so  much  by  personal  or  political,  as  by 
religious  motives.  Gardiner  was  a  true  Papist,  and  this  covered  all 
his  offences  ;  Cranmer  was  a  zealous  Protestant,  and  this  was  a  crime 
which  cancelled  all  obligations.  For  it  was  Cranmer's  intercession 
which  had  saved  her  from  the  Tower,  and  from  a  bloody  death  at  her 
father's  hands  ;  and  he  had  incurred  the  hatred  of  the  powerful 
Northumberland  by  his  earnest  opposition,  only  relinquished  upon 
Edward's  dying  entreaties,  to  the  exclusion  of  Mary  from  the  succes- 
sion. 

Nor  did  any  execution  take  place  on  the  charge  of  treason.  A 
year  and  a  half  were  the  accused  reserved  in  prison,  till  Cardinal 
Pole  had  effected  a  formal  reconciliation  between  the  apostate  king- 
dom and  Holy  Mother  Church,  by  which  the  Pope  resumed  all  his 

*  Burnet,  vol.  i.,  p.  154. 


194  ENGLISH   BIBLE  TRANSLATION. 

ancient  dominion  over  England,  and  the  doctrines  of  Rome  became 
once  more  the  established  faith.  A  stillness,  presaging  the  bursting 
of  the  storm,  held  the  nation  for  a  time  in  suspense  and  fear. 

Meanwhile,  all  foreigners  attached  to  the  reformed  principles,  great 
humbers  of  whom  had,  during  the  reign  of  Edward,  fled  from  perse- 
cution in  their  own  countries  into  England,  were  warned  to  depart 
without  delay.  In  their  train,  disguised  as  servants,  and  by  other 
Opportunities,  a  large  body  of  English  Protestants  contrived  to  elude 
the  vigilance  of  government,  and  escaped  to  the  continent.  Not 
fewer  than  eight  hundred  or  a  thousand  learned  men,  besides  great 
numbers  in  other  conditions,  are  estimated  to  have  become  exiles 
during  this  short  reign. 

At  length,  on  the  21st  of  November,  1554,  Cardinal  Pole  arrived  in 
England  as  Papal  Legate,  and  was  received  with  all  the  pomp  and 
reverence  due  to  the  ambassador  plenipotentiary  of  his  Holiness. 
On  the  30th  of  the  same  month,  he  performed  the  ceremony  of 
reconciling  Parliament,  as  the  highest  civil  assembly  of  the  realm  ; 
on  the  6th  of  December  the  same  was  done  in  the  Convocation,  the 
highest  assembly  of  the  clergy.  This  was  followed  by  commissions, 
issued  by  the  Cardinal  to  Winchester  and  other  bishops,  for  trying 
heretics.  It  was  then  that  the  pent  up  flames  of  persecution  burst 
forth  with  unexampled  fury.  The  alacrity  of  the  commissioned  pre- 
lates to  discharge  their  bloody  office  shows  with  what  impatience  they 
had  waited  for  the  appointed  hour.  First,  the  most  eminent  of  the 
reformers,  those  who  were  regarded  as  leaders  of  the  host,  were  con- 
demned and  executed  ;  then  attention  was  turned  to  humbler  victims. 
The  whole  country  was  placed  under  the  most  odious  system  of  espion- 
age. Justices  of  the  Peace  in  the  several  counties  were  formed  into 
secret  vigilance  committees,  who  were  directed  to  lay  out  their  shires 
into  districts,  and  to  employ  spies  in  every  parish  ;  and  they  were  to 
meet  monthly  to  receive  the  information  thus  gathered,  to  examine 
such  as  were  accused,  and  make  report  to  head-quarters.  By  these 
thorough  measures  it  was  intended  utterly  to  root  out  and  extirpate 
heresy  from  the  land.  The  Queen,  especially  after  her  marriage  with 
that  cold-hearted  bigot  Philip  II.,  urged  on  these  proceedings  against 
her  innocent  subjects  with  unrelenting  fury.  Even  the  hope  of  becom- 
ing a  mother  but  added  fierceness  to  her  cruelty  ;  and  she  declared 
that  unless  her  mind  were  quieted  by  the  death  of  every  heretic  then 
in  the  prisons,  "  even  to  the  last  one,"  she  could  not  hope  to  pass 
the  approaching  crisis  with  safety.*  Bonner  himself  was  then  too  slow 
for  her  impatience. 

*  Strype's  Cranmer,  vol.  i.,  p.  528. 


THE   REIGN    OF   TERROR.  I95 

It  was  a  terrific  period,  and,  as  in  all  similar  trials,  "  the  love  of 
many  waxed  cold,"  and  multitudes  sought  to  make  the  impossible 
compromise  between  outward  assent  to  what  they  disbelieved,  and 
inward  allegiance  to  the  truth.  But  there  were  also  many  who  chose 
death  rather  than  deny  Christ  ;  and  their  example  did  far  more  to 
undermine  Popery  in  the  hearts  of  the  people,  than  Cranmer's  Church 
had  ever  accomplished  with  its  carefully  elaborated  Articles,  and  its 
gentle  persuasives  of  fines  and  the  Fleet.  The  faith  of  these  stead- 
fast martyrs  was  an  argument  which  came  not  in  word  alone,  but  in 
power.  It  told  of  an  inward  life  which  could  overmaster  fear  and 
pain,  which  in  the  midst  of  bodily  torture  could  impart  a  divine  joy 
such  as  earthly  prosperity  could  never  give,  and  even  in  the  dying 
agony  could  inspire  a  prayer  of  forgiveness  and  love  for  the  perse- 
cutor. 

From  February,  1555,  to  November,  1558,  a  period  of  less  than 
four  years,  there  perished  in  prison  by  torture,  and  at  the  stake, 
nearly  four  hundred  persons,  a  large  number  of  whom  were  in  the 
flower  of  youth.  Of  these,  two  hundred  and  eighty-eight  perished  at 
the  stake,  many  of  them  under  circumstances  of  peculiar  cruelty.  As 
if  the  spectacle  of  a  single  human  being  shriveling  in  the  flames  could 
not  satisfy  the  cannibal  fury  of  their  persecutors,  it  became  the  cus- 
tom to  burn  them  in  companies  of  from  three  to  ten  or  more.  At 
Colchester  five  men  and  five  women  were  burned  in  one  day,  six  in 
the  morning,  and  four  in  the  afternoon.  At  Lewis,  in  Kent,  six  men 
and  four  women  perished  together.  At  Bow.  near  London,  was  wit- 
nessed, June  27th,  1556,  the  horrible  spectacle  of  thirteen  human 
beings,  eleven  men  and  two  women,  consumed  in  one  fire.  They 
suffered,  not  even  charged  with  any  offence  against  morality  or  the 
civil  law  ;  but  simply  because  they  could  not  conform  their  con- 
sciences to  the  doctrines  and  observances  of  the  Queen's  religion. 

Such  a  time  was  needed,  also,  to  show  what  the  word  of  God  had 
already  done  for  England.  After  the  first  paralyzing  shock  of  terror, 
the  work  which  had  been  progressing  for  thirty  years,  manifested 
itself  with  increasing  power  ;  till  at  length  the  demonstrations  of  pop- 
ular feeling,  though  free  from  every  trace  of  violence  or  disorder, 
alarmed  the  government  into  comparative  moderation.  On  the  occa- 
sion last  mentioned,  twenty  thousand  persons  were  estimated  to  have 
been  present,  "  whose  ends  generally  in  coming  there,  and  to  such 
like  executions,"  says  Strype,  "  were  to  strengthen  themselves  in  the 
profession  of  the  Gospel,  and  to  exhort  and  comfort  those  who  were 
to  die."  A  single  bystander  having  uttered,  in  the  fullness  of  his 
heart,  a  brief  ejaculation  in  behalf  of  the  sufferers,  a  responsive  Amen 


I96  ENGLISH   BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

burst  from  the  assembled  multitude  with  the  sound  of  thunder.* 
But  the  infatuated  Queen  needed  many  such  lessons  before  she 
learned  to  respect  the  awful  voice  of  popular  conviction. 

The  persecutions  of  the  year  1558  again  brought  out  to  the  light 
those  secret  societies  of  believers,  or  Congregations,  as  they  called 
themselves,  which  have  been  already  mentioned  as  the  successors  of 
the  Lollards.  Several  of  these  now  existed  in  London  ;  and  from 
the  number  of  localities  specified  where  they  were  accustomed  to 
assemble,  it  appears  that  they  had  increased  rather  than  dimin- 
ished. Whether  they  had  been  known  during  the  administration 
of  Cranmer  is  uncertain  ;  but  as  they  seem  to  have  preserved  their 
separate  organization,  differing  in  important  respects  from  the  State 
Church,  it  is  most  probable  that  they  had  continued  to  assemble  dur- 
ing that  period  with  their  wonted  silence  and  secrecy.  So  far  as  we 
can  judge,  they  were  simply  companies  (or,  as  we  should  now  call 
them,  Churches)  of  believers,  who  met  statedly  for  the  worship  of 
God  and  for  the  celebration  of  the  Lord's  Supper,  and  had  no 
officers  but  a  Pastor  and  Deacons  chosen  by  themselves.  The  con- 
gregation which  assembled  in  Bow  Lane,  is  known  to  have  existed 
without  interruption  twenty-five  years,  and  was  probably  the  parent 
of  all  the  rest.  They  had  not  intermitted  their  meetings  during 
Mary's  bloody  reign,  and  had  enjoyed  through  this  period  the  labors 
of  a  succession  of  godly  and  able  pastors.  These  had  been  com- 
pelled, one  after  another,  to  take  refuge  in  flight  ;  but  the  members, 
as  a  body,  had  thus  far  escaped  detection. 

A  tone  of  piety,  beautifully  primitive  and  Scriptural,  characterized 
these  quiet,  humble  companies  of  Christians.  They  seem  never  to 
have  been  disturbed  by  those  hair-splitting  disputes  over  free-will  and 
predestination,  in  which  the  metaphysical  tendencies  of  some  of  the 
leading  reformers  had  embroiled  Protestantism  ;  and  which,  in  the 
earlier  days  of  the  Marian  persecution,  had  made  even  the  prisons  of 
the  faithful  re-echo  with  the  brawls  of  fiery  controversy,  and  com- 
pelled the  jailers  to  secure  a  decent  peace,  by  separating  brother  from 
brother.f  Those  disciples  seem,  pre-eminently,  to  have  "  kept  the 
unity  of  the  spirit  in  the  bond  of  peace."  Holding  fast  those 
grand  truths  of  revelation  which  pertain  to  the  soul's  salvation,  it  was 
their  simple  aim  to  incorporate  them  as  living  energies  in  their  hearts, 
and  to  manifest  that  inward  power  by  lives  of  holiness  and  love. 
Such  had  been  their  character  from  their  first  beginnings  in  the  days 
of  Wickliffe. 

*  Anderson,  vol.  ii.,  p.  264. 

•j-  Strype's  Cranmer,  Book  iii.,  ch.  xiv. 


THE   REIGN   OF   TERROR.  197 

Bonner's  suspicous  eye  had  been  for  some  time  directed  to  the 
gatherings  of  these  inoffensive  people  ;  and  his  spies,  under  the  guise 
of  brethren,  had  been  busily  engaged  in  seeking  information  to  be 
used  against  them  At  length,  one  Sabbath  morning — December  12, 
155S — as  they  were  about  assembling  for  divine  worship  at  Islington, 
their  pastor,  Mr.  John  Rough,  and  one  of  their  deacons,  Cuthbert 
Symson,  a  rich  and  worthy  citizen  of  London,  were"  there  appre- 
hended by  the  Captain  of  the  Queen's  Guard,  and  taken  immediately 
before  the  Privy  Council.  Three  days  after  they  were  handed  over 
to  the  tender  mercies  of  Bonner.  During  his  trial  before  this  brutal 
prelate,  Mr.  Rough  alluded  to  a  visit  which  he  had  once  made  to 
Rome,  and  'the  abominations  he  had  there  witnessed.  This  so  infuri- 
ated Bonner  that  he  flew  upon  him  like  a  wild  beast,  and  actually  tore 
out  a  part  of  his  beard  by  the  roots  !  Two  days  before  he  suffered, 
he  addressed  the  bereaved  flock  of  which  he  had  been  so  faithful  a 
shepherd,  in  a  letter  which  breathed  the  spirit  of  the  apostolic  age. 
Like  those  of  Tyndale  and  Frith,  this  beautiful  epistle  tells  us,  in 
every  sentence,  that  the  Bible  was  the  fountain  from  which  his  life 
drew  its  springs. 

Mr.  Symson  was  reserved  three  months  longer  in  prison,  the  object 
being  to  force  from  him  the  names  of  his  fellow-disciples,  of  which  he 
had  the  list.  Three  times  in  one  day  was  he  subjected  to  torture  ; 
but  no  agonies  could  tempt  him  to  betray  his  brethren.  Bonner  him- 
self confessed  before  the  Consistory  that  he  was  baffled,  and  that 
there  was  something  in  this  man's  spirit  which  he  could  not  under- 
stand. "  Ye  see  this  man,"  said  he,  "  what  a  personable  man  he  is. 
And  furthermore,  concerning  his  patience,  I  say  unto  you  that  if  he 
were  not  a  heretic,  he  is  a  man  of  the  greatest  patience  that  ever  yet 
came  before  me  ;  for  I  tell  you  he  hath  been  thrice  racked  in  one  day 
in  the  Tower.  Also  in  my  house  he  hath  felt  some  sorrow  ;  and  yet 
I  never  saw  his  patience  broken."  On  the  28th  of  March  this  heroic 
man  was  burnt  at  Smithfield,  in  company  with  two  of  his  brethren. 

The  place  of  their  pastor  was  immediately  supplied  by  the  not  less 
holy  and  intrepid  Thomas  Bentham.  There  was  need  of  such  a 
leader,  for  the  persecution  now  grew  hot.  Less  than  a  month  after 
the  death  of  Cuthbert  Symson,  about  forty  of  their  number,  men  and 
women,  had  assembled  for  worship  near  Islington.  With  their  Bibles 
in  their  hands,  they  were  "  occupied  in  the  meditation  of  God's  holy 
word,"  when  they  were  surprised  by  a  constable  and  his  posse,  who 
succeeded  in  arresting  twenty-two  of  them.  They  were  immediately 
imprisoned  at  Newgate,  and  there  lay  seven  weeks  without  being  once 
called  up  for  examination.     Two  died  in  prison  ;  of  the  remaining 


198  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

twenty,  thirteen  were  condemned  on  the  24th  of  June — a  month 
memorable  in  the  history  of  English  martyrdom — to  perish  at  the 
stake.     The  rest  barely  escaped  with  life. 

Seven  of  the  condemned  were  to  be  burned  at  Smithfield.  Fearful 
of  the  demonstrations  which  had  been  witnessed  on  former  occasions 
of  this  character,  Philip  and  Mary  took  the  precaution  of  issuing  a 
proclamation,  to  be  read  first  at  Newgate  and  afterward  at  the  stake, 
charging  and  commanding,  that  "  no  man  should  either  pray  for,  or 
speak  to  the  condemned,  or  once  say,  '  God  help  them  !'  "  But  it 
needed  something  more  than  royal  proclamations  to  repress  the  mighty 
emotion  now  swelling  in  the  great  popular  heart.  At  the  appointed 
hour  a  vast  multitude  stood  awaiting  the  arrival  of  the  martyrs  at 
Smithfield.  Swaying  forward  at  their  approach,  with  a  quiet  but  irre- 
sistible movement,  they  surrounded  the  prisoners,  while  the  billmtn 
and  officers  were  borne  off  like  chaff  on  the  wave,  so  that  they  could 
not  even  come  near  their  charge.  Then  was  disclosed  the  cause  of 
this  strange  proceeding.  In  the  bosom  of  that  dense  crowd  were  hid 
the  "  congregation"  and  its  pastor,  who  were  now  seen  exchanging 
with  their  brethren  farewell  embraces,  and  words  of  encouragement 
and  affection.  Then  they  fell  off  quietly,  and  allowed  the  officers  to 
resume  their  places.  The  royal  proclamation,  enjoining  silence,  was 
now  read.  But  on  seeing  the  fire  kindled,  Mr.  Bentham,  turning  to 
the  multitude,  exclaimed  :  "  We  know  that  they  are  the  people  of 
God,  and  therefore  we  cannot  choose  but  wish  well  to  them,  and  say, 
God  strengthen  them  !"  Then  in  a  still  louder  voice,  he  added, 
"Almighty  God,  for  Christ's  sake,  strengthen  them!"  Again  that 
deep  "  amen  !  amen  !"  rose  on  the  air  like  the  sound  of  many 
waters,  and  gave  solemn  pledge,  in  the  face  of  earth  and  heaven,  that 
the  heart  and  conscience  of  England  must  and  would  be  free. 

But  it  is  time  we  turn  to  the  direct  history  of  the  English  Bible 
during  this  bloody  reign. 

It  is  not  a  little  singular  that  during  these  five  and  a  half  years 
there  seems  to  have  been  no  direct  legislation  against  the  use  of  the 
Scriptures,  beyond  the  proclamation  issued  by  Mary  on  her  accession. 
That  the  Queen  would  gladly  have  followed,  in  this  respect,  in  her 
father's  early  steps,  no  one  can  doubt.  That  she  refrained,  is  a  tell- 
ing symptom  of  the  state  of  public  opinion.  But  there  were  indirect 
methods  of  securing  the  same  object  ;  and  there  is  sufficient  evidence 
that  Bibles  were  seized  and  burned,  and  their  readers  severely  pun- 
ished. In  1555  a  second  proclamation  forbade  the  importation  and 
use  of  all  or  any  of  the  works  of  certain  authors — thirty-five  in  num- 
ber— whose  names  are  therein  specified.     Among  the  twelve  English 


THE   REIGN   OF  TERROR.  199 

authors  on  the  list,  are  Tyndale,  Coverdale,  and  Cranmer  ;  and  though 
their  translations  of  the  Bible  are  not  mentioned  by  name,  we  may  be 
sure  that  they  were  not  only  included  under  the  action  of  this  decree, 
but  were  the  special  occasion  of  it.  That  it  signally  failed  of  the 
desired  end,  we  learn  from  the  tenor  of  the  third  proclamation  in 
1558,  which  required  all  "  wicked  and  seditious  books,"  to  be  deliv- 
ered up  on  pain  of  immediate  death,  by  martial  law  !  The  history 
now  to  follow  furnishes  the  key  to  this  last  measure,  which  bears  upon 
its  face  the  evidence  of  reckless  desperation.  Not  only  were  the  pre- 
viously existing  versions  still  read  in  secret  in  every  part  of  England, 
but  a  new  one — in  some  respects  more  formidable  than  either  of  its 
predecessors — was  added  to  the  number  several  months  before  the 
death  of  the  unhappy  Queen.  It  is  of  this  version  that  a  brief  ac- 
count will  now  be  given. 


CHAPTER    XXV. 


THE     GENEVAN     BIBLE. 


A  considerable  body  of  the  English  exiles  had  established  them- 
selves at  Geneva  in  Switzerland,  then,  as  ever  since,  a  city  eminent 
for  theological  learning.  The  English  Church  at  Geneva  is  said  to 
have  numbered  several  hundred  members,  among  whom  were  many 
distinguished  scholars  and  preachers.  Shut  up  together  in  this  city  of 
letters,  and  with  few  active  duties  to  occupy  their  time,  it  is  not 
strange  to  find  them  busy  in  devising  plans  for  benefiting  their  be- 
loved native  land.  It  was,  indeed  a  time  of  general  intellectual 
activity  among  the  learned  fugitives  scattered  through  various  parts 
of  Protestant  Europe  ;  and  many  excellent  works,  the  fruit  of  their 
constrained  leisure,  were  sent  over  to  England  to  supply  in  some  meas- 
ure, by  the  silent  labors  of  the  pen,  the  voice  of  the  living  teacher. 

In  Geneva  this  activity  very  naturally  directed  itself  toward  an  im- 
proved translation  of  the  Scriptures.  Such  an  attempt  was  fully  in 
accordance  with  the  spirit  of  the  age,  which  had  already  given  birth  to 
independent  versions  and  repeated  revisions  of  the  English  Scriptures  ; 
and  now  demanded  the  perfecting  of  this  great  work.  In  this  respect 
the  undertaking  presents  a  wide  contrast  to  that  of  Tyndale,  and 
exhibits  in  a  striking  light  the  changes  effected  in  little  more  than  a 
quarter  of  a  century  through  the  labors  of  that  great  man.  What 
Anderson  well  remarks  of  the  version  of  Coverdale,  may  with  still 
more  propriety  be  applied  to  this,  and  to  all  subsequent  attempts  in 
the  same  field  :  "  Their  translations  were  the  effect  of  Jhe  times ;  the 
times  themselves  were  the  effect  of  Tyndale's."  This  general  tendency 
could  not  fail  to  receive  a  powerful  impulse  in  Geneva,  where,  under 
the  leadership  of  Calvin  and  Beza,  sacred  learning  was  cultivated  with 
an  ardor  and  success  far  in  advance  of  what  was  witnessed  in  any 
other  portion  of  Christendom.  It  is  not  unlikely,  from  the  circum- 
stances, that  the  first  suggestion  of  the  new  translation  came  from 
Calvin  himself.  Among  these  is  the  fact  that  his  brother-in-law, 
William  Whittingham,  as  seems  to  be  now  conceded,  was  the  trans- 
lator of  the  New  Testament.  But  whatever  its  source,  the  proposi- 
tion awoke  an  instant  enthusiasm  among  the  whole  body  of  exiles  ; 
and  the  lay  members  of  the  Church  encouraged  the  projectors  not 


THE   GENEVAN   BIBLE.  201 

only  with  their  sympathy,  but  with  offers  of  all  the  pecuniary  assist- 
ance neededvto  carry  it  through  successfully.  Among  the  most  for- 
ward in  this  good  work  was  John  Bodleigh,  father  of  the  founder  of 
the  celebrated  Bodleian  Library,  a  man  of  wealth  and  noble  spirit, 
who,  on  the  completion  of  the  version,  took  upon  himself  the  chief 
cost  of  its  publication.* 

The  New  Testament  was  first  translated,  and  was  published  in 
1557.  The  ability  with  which  it  was  executed  fully  justified  the  under- 
taking. Every  page  exhibited  evidences  of  the  advance  of  Christian 
scholarship  since  the  appearance  of  the  previous  versions.  In  the 
Address  to  the  Reader,  the  translator  refers  to  the  peculiar  advantages 
afforded  by  his  residence  and  relations  in  Geneva;  "being,"  he 
says,  "  moved  with  zeal,  counselled  by  the  godly,  and  drawn  by 
occasion,  both  of  the  place  where  God  hath  appointed  us  to  dwell, 
and  also  of  the  store  of  heavenly  learning  and  judgment  which  so 
aboundeth  in  this  city  of  Geneva  that  justly  it  may  be  called  the 
patron  and  mirror  of  true  religion  and  godliness."  The  utmost  thor- 
oughness was  aimed  at  in  the  work.  Not  only  was  the  translation 
made  directly  from  the  Greek,  aided  by  comparison  with  versions  in 
other  languages,  but  the  Greek  text  itself  (as  published  by  Erasmus) 
was  revised  by  manuscripts  which  had  been  collected  by  the  scholars 
of  Geneva.  When  it  was  completed,  Calvin  expressed  his  interest  in 
the  work  by  prefixing  to  it  an  introduction,  which  he  calls  :  "  The 
Epistle  declaring  that  Christ  is  the  end  of  the  Law."  It  sketches 
briefly  and  beautifully  the  progressive  steps  by  which  the  need  of  a 
Mediator  and  Redeemer  was  made  known,  and  the  minds  of  men 
taught  to  look  forward  to  him  ;  till  at  length,  in  the  fullness  of  time 
he  appeared,  and  by  his  miracles,  his  teachings,  his  death  and  ascen- 
sion, proved  himself  to  be  the  long  expected  hope  of  the  world,  to 
which  also  agreed  the  witness  of  inspired  men,  of  angels,  and  of  God 
himself.  The  divinely  authenticated  history  of  these  transactions  is 
contained  in  the  books  of  the  New  Testament,  which  embodies  also 
the  teachings  of  inspired  apostles  as  to  the  application  to  be  made  of 
them  for  securing  our  salvation. 

"  All  these  things  are  published,  declared,  written,  and  sealed  to  us  in  this 
Testament,  by  the  which  Jesus  Christ  makes  us  his  heirs  in  the  kingdom  of  God 
his  Father,  and  declareth  unto  us  his  will,  as  he  that  maketh  his  testament  to  his 
heirs  to  be  put  in  execution.  Now  we  are  all  called  to  this  inheritance,  without 
putting  any  manner  of  difference  either  between  man  or  woman,  small  or  great, 
servant  or  lord,  master  or  scholar,  clergy  or  laity,  Hebrew,  Greek,  French,  or 
Latin,  none  of  them  is  refused,  if  that  by  assured  confidence  he  embraceth  that 

*  Anderson,  vol.  i.,  p.  322. 


% 

202  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

which  is  sent  unto  him  ;  briefly,  whosoever  shall  acknowledge  Jesus  Christ  such 
as  he  is  ordained  of  the  Father.  Therefore,"  he  continues,  "  shaH  we  that  bear 
the  name  of  Christians  suffer  this  Testament  to  be  taken  from  us,  or  else  to  be 
hid  or  corrupted,  which  so  justly  is  ours,  and  without  the  which  wc  can  pretend 
to  no  title  to  the  kingdom  of  God,  without  the  which  we  know  not  the  excellent 
graces  and  promises  which  Jesus  Christ  hath  declared  towards  us,  neither  the 
glory  and  blessedness  which  he  hath  prepared  for  us  ?"  .  .  .  "  O  Christians, 
understand  now  and  learri  this  point  ;  for  doubtless  the  ignorant  shall  perish  in 
his  ignorance,  and  the  blind  following  another  blind  shall  fall  with  him  into  the 
ditch.  There  is  but  one  way  to  life  and  salvation,  that  is,  faith  in  the  assurance 
of  God's  promises,  which  we  cannot  have  without  the  Gospel."  "  What  thing 
might  there  be  then  that  could  unacquaint  us  and  drive  us  back  from  this  Gospel  ? 
Shall  injuries,  evil  sayings,  rebukes,  loss  of  worldly  honors  ?  .  .  .  Shall 
banishment,  proclamations  of  attaint,  loss  of  lands  and  goods  ?  .  .  .  Shall 
afflictions,  prisons,  rackings,  torments,  make  us  shrink  from  this  Gospel  ?  We 
learn  by  Jesus  Christ  that  this  is  the  right  path  to  come  to  glory.  Finally,  shall 
death  ?     Nay,  death  cannot  take  away  that  life  which  we  wish  and  wait  for." 

The  tone  of  the  whole  epistle  is  gentle  and  tender,  as  if  the  heart 
of  the  writer  were  melted  with  sympathy  for  his  persecuted  brethren  ; 
and  his  exposition  of  the  offices  of  Christ,  as  the  all  and  in  all  to  the 
redeemed,  of  his  infinite  worth  and  the  fullness  of  his  love,  breathe  a 
richness  and  fervor  of  piety,  which  conflicts  somewhat  with  the 
common  notion  entertained  of  the  stern  reformer. 

The  New  Testament  was  no  sooner  completed  than  the  translator, 
now  aided  by  learned  associates,  of  whom  Gilby  and  Sampson,  two  of 
his  distinguished  fellow-exiles,  are  supposed  to  have  been  the  chief, 
turned  his  attention  to  the  Hebrew  Scriptures.  Elizabeth's  accession 
and  the  consequent  happy  change  of  affairs  in  the  autumn  of  1558, 
invited  them  back  to  England,  whither  the  great  body  of  English 
exiles  now  returned  with  joyful  haste.  But  so  deeply  were  they  im- 
pressed with  the  importance  of  finishing  the  great  task  they  had  under- 
taken, that  for  two  years  longer  they  denied  themselves  the  sight  of 
their  native  land,  and  labored,  as  they  tell  us,  "  day  and  night,"  till  it 
was  completed.  In  1560  the  first  edition  of  the  complete  Genevan 
version  appeared  in  England. 

As  Greek  philology  was  far  in  advance  of  Hebrew  when  the  former 
versions  were  made,  and  much  had  been  accomplished  in  the  latter 
since  their  time,  the  Genevan  Old  Testament  exhibited  a  yet  more 
decided  improvement  than  the  New.  In  both  divisions,  the  style  of 
the  translation  shows  it  to  have  been  an  entirely  independent  render- 
ing of  the  original,  neither  studiously  departing  from  the  former  ver- 
sions, nor  trammeled  by  them  where  the  translator's  view  of  the  sense 
differed  from  theirs,  or  where  the  same  sense  can  be  more  clearly  ex- 
pressed in  another  form.     As  compared  with  Tyndale's,  its  manner 


THE   GENEVAN   BIBLE.  203 

sometimes  appears  dry  and  curt,  and  we  miss  in  it,  or  fancy  that  we 
miss,  the  glow  with  which  the  heart  of  the  old  translator  suffused  his 
phraseology  ;  but  the  meaning  is  often  brought  out  with  far  greater 
distinctness.  The  English  is  in  every  respect  as  intelligible  as  that  of 
our  common  version,  not  seldom  more  so,  and  the  two  would  still 
be  read  with  great  profit  in  connection.  It  is,  indeed,  much  to  be 
regretted  that  so  excellent  a  version  should  not  be  rescued  from  the 
dust  of  past  ages,  and  made  accessible  to  English  readers  as  a  help 
to  the  better  understanding  of  their  Family  Bible. 

Its  usefulness  and  its  popularity  were  much  increased  by  the  brief, 
pithy  notes  added  by  the  translators,  containing  such  information  in 
regard  to  Biblical  geography  and  antiquities,  and  such  doctrinal 
explanations,  as  were  needed  for  the  clear  understanding  of  the  text. 
Another  feature  which  indicates  the  liberal  spirit  of  the  translators,  is 
the  insertion  in  the  margin  of  various  readings,  thus  placing  the 
unlearned  reader,  so  far  as  possible,  in  the  position  of  the  scholar, 
and  allowing  him  to  use  his  own  judgment  as  to  which  of  the  read- 
ings suits  best  with  the  connection.  A  less  commendable  novelty  is 
the  division  of  the  text  into  verses,  a  practice  till  then  unknown  in  Eng- 
lish Bibles,  but  ever  since  as  pertinaciously  adhered  to  as  if  an  inte- 
gral part  of  the  inspired  word.  No  single  thing,  probably,  had  done 
more  toward  multiplying  sects  in  the  Christian  body,  and  substituting 
a  dry,  dogmatic  theology  in  place  of  the  living  sap  of  revealed  truth, 
than  this  mischievous  device,  for  which  there  is  but  one  poor  plea — 
the  advantage  of  easy  reference.* 

To  the  whole  Bible,  thus  completed,  was  prefixed  an  Epistle  "  to 
our  beloved  brethren  in  England,  Scotland,  and  Ireland,"  in  which 
they  explain  their  reasons  for  sending  forth  a  new  version. 

"  Now,  forasmuch  as  this  thing  [progress  in  a  holy  life]  is  chiefly  attained  by 
the  knowledge  and  practising  of  the  word  of  God,  (which  is  the  light  to  our 
paths,  the  key  of  the  kingdom  of  Heaven,  our  comfort  in  affliction,  our  shield 
and  sword  against  Satan,  the  school  of  all  wisdom,  the  glass  wherein  we  behold 
God's  face,  the  testimony  of  his  favor,  and  the  only  food  and  nourishment  of  our 
souls,)  we  thought  we  could  bestow  our  labors  and  study  in  nothing  which  could 
be  more  acceptable  to  God,  and  comfortable  to  his  Church,  than  in  the  translat- 
ing of  the  Scriptures  into  our  native  tongue  ;  the  which  thing,  albeit  that  others 
heretofore  have  endeavored  to  achieve,  yet,  considering  the  infancy  of  those  times 
and  imperfect  knowledge  of  the  tongues  in  respect  of  this  ripe  age  and  clear  light 
which  God  hath  now  revealed,  the  translations  required  greatly  to  be  peYused 
and  reformed." 

*  The  Anglo-American  revisers  of  the  New  Testament  have  wisely  discarded 
this  "  mischievous  device,"  and  placed  the  numbers  of  chapters  and  verses  in  the 
margin. — T.  J.  C. 


204  ENGLISH   BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

The  Genevan  Bible  at  once  found  favor  with  the  people  and  estab- 
lished itself  in  a  wonderfully  brief  period  as  the  Family  Bible  of 
England.  Unsustained  and  even  discountenanced  by  the  ruling 
ecclesiastical  powers,  it  not  only  supplanted  the  earlier  versions,  but 
maintained  its  place  against  two  powerful  competitors  of  later  date, 
as  the  favorite  version  of  the  people,  for  the  greater  part  of  a  century. 

During  this  time,  it  passed  (including  the  separate  issues  of  the 
New  Testament)  through  a  hundred  and  fifty  editions.  It  even  made 
its  way  to  a  considerable  extent  into  churches,  being  preferred  by 
many  clergymen  even  after  the  publication  of  the  Bishops'  Bible'.  It 
still  continued  to  be  printed  for  private  use  long  after  the  appearance 
of  King  James'  revision,  the  last  ascertained  edition  bearing  date 
1644.  So  pertinaciously,  indeed,  did  the  people  cling  to  it,  and  so 
injurious  was  its  influence  to  the  interests  of  the  Established  Church 
and  of  the  "  authorized  version,"  that  in  the  reign  of  Charles  I., 
Archbishop  Laud  made  the  vending,  binding,  or  importation  of  it  a 
high-commission  crime.*  Even  so  late  as  1649,  an  attempt  was 
made  to  commend  King  James'  Bible  to  popular  favor,  thirty-eight 
years  from  its  first  publication,  by  printing  with  it  the  Genevan 
Notes  !  But  after  that  time,  the  old  Family  Bible  gradually  disap- 
peared from  the  homes  and  hearths  of  England,  and  gave  place  to 
that  which  has  been  so  long  known  and  honored  as  the  Common  Ver- 
sion.! 

The  success  of  the  Genevan  version  is  to  be  explained  chiefly  from 
two  causes  :  First,  its  intrinsic  merits  as  a  faithful  and  clear  tran- 
script of  the  inspired  word,  according  to  the  best  scholarship  of  the 
age.  Its  character  in  this  respect  was  so  unquestionable  as  to  secure 
for  it  universal  respect,  and  to  draw  even  from  those  who  least  liked 
its  influence,  a  frank  concession  of  its  excellence.  \  Second,  its  origin 
in  the  stronghold  of  Presbyterianism,  its  connection  with  the  name  of 
Calvin,  and  with  the  doctrines,  the  severe  simplicity  in  forms,  and 
the  comparative  Christian  equality  prevailing  in  the  Genevan  Church, 
commended  it  to  the  warmest  sympathy  of  that  large  and  increasing 
body,  the  Puritan  party  in  the  Church  of  England.  To  them  it 
became  the  symbol  of  all  they  wished  to  see  in  their  native  land,  of  a 
church  reform  which  should  sweep  away  everything  in  Christian  wor- 
ship^orrowed  from  the  traditions  of  the  Church  of  Rome,  and  which 

*  Anderson,  vol.  ii.,  p.  390. 

f  It  is  worthy  of  note,  that  it  is  to  the  Genevan  version  we  owe  the  fine  expres- 
sion in  Dan.  vii.  9,  "The  Ancient  of  days."  All  the  previous  versions  had 
the  awkward  and  unmeaning  phrase,  "  the  Old  Aged  !" — T.  J.  C. 

\  Strype's  Life  of  Archbishop  Parker,  p.  207. 


THE   GENEVAN   BIBLE.  205 

should  conform  it,  outwardly  as  well  as  inwardly,  to  the  model  fur- 
nished in  the  word  of  God.  How  much  it  thus  did,  directly  and  in- 
directly, both  for  the  spread  of  real  piety,  and  for  the  development  of 
Puritanism,  and  of  the. spirit  of  religious  and  civil  liberty  in  England, 
it  is  impossible  to  estimate. 

What  cause  is  it  for  regret  that  its  influence  should  not  have  been 
wholly  on  the  side  of  truth  and  freedom  !  But  the  Genevan  associa- 
tions, so  intimately  linked  with  its  existence,  were  not  all  beneficial. 
Genevan  Presbyterianism — far  as  it  had  advanced  in  other  respects — 
had  not  learned  to  respect  the  rights  of  conscience.  While  she 
secured  Christian  liberty  in  larger  measure  and  to  a  greater  number 
than  did  her  Anglican  sister,  her  hand  was  no  less  heavy  on  those 
outside  her  consecrated  pale  ;  and  the  sword  of  the  magistrate  was 
recognized  as  well  by  Calvin  as  by  Cranmer,  as  the  proper  guardian 
of  the  purity  and  order  of  the  Church  of  Christ. 

This  spirit  had  left  its  impress,  in  no  questionable  characters,  on 
the  Genevan  Bible.  The  Old  Testament  had  been  completed  in  the 
initial  period  of  Elizabeth's  reign,  when  her  policy  as  yet  seemed 
undecided,  and  the  reform  party  indulged  the  confident  expectation 
that  the  English  Church,  shattered  to  its  foundations  by  Mary,  would 
be  reconstructed  in  accordance  with  their  views.  Under  this  exhila- 
rating idea  the  translators  in  the  dedication  of  their  work  to  that 
"  most  vertuous  and  noble  ladie, "  thus  exhorted  her  to  exercise  her 
powers  as  civil  ruler  for  the  suppression  of  error  and  establishment  of 
truth  : 


"  Now  as  he  that  goeth  about  to  lay  a  foundation  surely,  first  taketh  away  such 
impediments  as  might  justly  either  hurt,  let,  or  deform  the  work  ;  so  is  it  neces- 
sary that  your  Grace's  zeal  appear  herein,  that  neither  the  crafty  persuasion  of 
man,  neither  worldly  policy  nor  natural  fear  dissuade  you  to  root  out,  cut  down, 
and  destroy  those  weeds  and  impediments  which  do  not  only  deface  your  build- 
ing, but  utterly  endeavor — yea,  and  threaten  the  ruin  thereof.  For  when  the 
noble  Josias  enterprised  the  like  kind  of  work,  among  other  notable  and  many 
things,  he  destroyed  not  only  with  utter  confuion  the  idols  and  their  appurte- 
nances, but  also  burnt  (in  sign  of  detestation)  the  idolatrous  priests'  bones  upon 
their  altars,  and  put  to  death  the  false  prophets  and  sorcerers,  to  perform  the 
words  of  the  law  of  God  :  and  therefore  God  gave  him  good  success,  and  blessed 
him  wonderfully,  so  long  as  he  made  God's  word  his  line  and  rule  to  follow,  and 
enterprised  nothing  before  he  had  enquired  at  the  mouth  of  the  Lord. 

"  And  if  these  zealous  beginnings  seem  dangerous,  and  to  breed  disquietness 
in  your  dominions,  yet  by  the  story  of  King  Asa  it  is  manifest  that  the  quietness 
and  peace  of  kingdoms  standeth  in  the  utter  abolishing  of  idolatry,  and  in  ad- 
vancing of  true  religion  ;  for  in  his  days  Judah  lived  in  rest  and  quietness  for  the 
space  of  five  and  thirty  years,  till  at  length  he  began  to  be  cold  in  the  zeal  of  the 


206  ENGLISH   BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

Lord,  feared  the  power  of  man,  imprisoned  the  prophet  of  God,  and  oppressed 
the  people  ;  then  the  Lord  sent  him  wars,  and  at  length  took  him  by  death. 

"  Moreover,  the  marvellous  diligence  and  zeal  of  Jehoshaphat,  Josiah,  and 
Hezekiah  are,  by  the  singular  providence  of  God,  left  as  an  example  to  all  godly 
rulers  to  reform  their  countries,  and  to  establish  the  wo'rd  of  God  with  all  speed, 
lest  the  wrath  of  God  fall  upon  them  from  the  neglecting  thereof.  For  these  ex- 
cellent kings  did  not  only  embrace  the  word  promptly  and  joyfully,  but  also  pro- 
cured earnestly,  and  commanded  the  same  to  be  taught,  preached,  and  main- 
tained through  all  their  countries  and  dominions — binding  them  and  all  their 
subjects,  both  great  and  small,  with  solemn  protestations  and  covenants  before 
God,  to  obey  the  word,  and  walk  after  the  ways  of  the  Lord.  Yea,  and  in  the 
days  of  King  Asa  it  was  enacted  that  whosoever  would  not  seek  the  Lord  God  of 
Israel  should  be  slain,  whether  he  were  small  or  great,  man  or  woman." 

The  shrewd  Princess  was  quite  ready  to  acknowledge  the  principle 
thus  laid  down,  but  not  the  application  of  it  intended  by  its  exposi- 
tors. If  conjecture  is  right  in  regard  to  the  names  of  the  translators, 
some  of  the  very  men  who  penned  this  dangerous  counsel  and  made 
God's  charter  of  human  rights  the  medium  for  communicating  it  to 
the  royal  mind,  were  soon  made  to  drink  deeply  of  the  cup  which 
they  had  mixed  for  others.  Yet  even  the  humiliations  so  steadfastly 
endured,  and  the  blood  so  freely  shed  by  Puritans  in  this  and  the 
succeeding  reigns  in  behalf  of  religious  liberty,  could  not  eradicate 
from  their  veins  this  early  taint.  Not  till  they  had  breathed  the  free 
air  of  the  western  wilderness  two  hundred  years,  did  they  fully  learn 
the  lesson  that  Christianity  can  live  and  flourish  unprotected  by  the 
State. 

Thus  the  English  Bible  went  forth  once  more  in  increased  energy, 
still  restricted  in  its  action  by  human  infirmity,  but  bearing  within 
itself  the  power  gradually  to  overcome  and  subdue  all  that  could  hin- 
der the  perfect  fulfillment  of  its  mission. 


CHAPTER    XXVI. 


THE     BISHOPS       BIBLE. 


In  1561,  the  third  year  of  Elizabeth's  reign,  John  Bodleigh,  with 
whom  we  have  already  become  acquainted  in  the  account  of  the  Gene- 
van Bible,  obtained  from  the  Queen's  government  a  patent  for  the  ex- 
clusive right  to  print  that  version  during  the  seven  years  next  ensuing. 
In  1566,  having  a  thoroughly  revised  edition  ready  for  the  press,  and 
wishing  to  print  it  in  England,  he  applied  to  Cecil,  the  Queen's  Secre- 
tary, for  an  extension  of  this  license.  Before  giving  him  a  reply, 
Cecil  consulted  with  Parker,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  and  Grindal, 
Bishop  of  London.  Their  answer  contains  three  striking  points. 
First,  a  recognition  from  these  dignitaries  of  the  great  merit  of  the 
Genevan  Bible,  on  which  account  they  recommended  the  extension  of 
Bodleigh' s  privilege  to  twelve  years  longer  ;  secondly,  the  announce- 
ment of  their  design  to  set  forth  a  special  translation  for  use  in 
churches  ;  thirdly,  the  condition  proposed  to  be  annexed  to  Bodleigh's 
patent,  viz.,  a  promise,  "  in  writing  under  his  hand,  that  no  impres- 
sion of  the  Genevan  Bible  should  pass  without  their  direction,  consent, 
and  advice." 

To  elucidate  the  bearings  of  this  reply  requires  a  brief  view  of  the 
policy  now  established  in  the  Elizabethan  Church  ;  a  policy  which 
continued  to  govern  it  with  extended  claims  and  increasing  force,  till 
in  the  hands  of  Charles  I.,  the  overstrung  bow  broke  with  its  own  ten- 
sion, and  State-Church  and  Church-State  fell  in  common  ruin. 

At  the  accession  of  Elizabeth,  there  were  tokens  that  the  spirit  of 
Christian  liberality  and  union  had  very  considerably  increased  among 
English  Protestants.  Their  common  sufferings  during  the  preceding 
bloody  reign,  and  the  fraternal  sympathy  and  hospitality  which  they 
had  received  from  the  reformed  churches  abroad,  had  at  once  exalted 
in  their  regard  the  essential  grounds  of  faith  in  which  they  agreed, 
and  lowered  their  estimate  of  the  external  forms  in  which  they  dif- 
fered. In  anticipation  of  the  reorganization  of  the  English  Church,  a 
general  disposition  was  manifested  to  lay  stress  on  an  exact  outward 
uniformity,  and  to  leave  the  details  of  habits  and  ceremonies  to  indi- 
vidual conscience  and  discretion.  The  letters  of  the  returned  exiles 
to  their  Presbyterian  brethren  on  the  continent  not  only  breathe  this 


208  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

spirit  of  conciliation,  but  show  a  decided  leaning  toward  the  simpler 
and  more  democratic  form  of  Church  government  which  prevailed  in 
the  Swiss  churches,  as  being  more  closely  conformed  to  the  New 
Testament  model,  and  better  adapted  to  the  edification  of  the  people.* 

But  in  this  they  had  reckoned  without  their  host.  Elizabeth  had 
no  intention  of  being  a  whit  less  a  monarch  than  her  father.  She 
valued  the  Reformation  not  so  much  for  the  truth  it  propagated  as  for 
the  foundation  it  offered  for  her  own  supremacy.  She  did  not  wish 
the  Pope  of  Rome  to  rule  in  her  dominions,  because  she  wished  to  be 
herself  Pope,  sole  ruler  over  the  actions  and  the  consciences  of  her 
subjects.  In  the  preceding  reign  she  had  conformed  to  the  dominant 
faith,  probably  without  much  violence  to  her  principles  ;  and  her 
tastes  were  at  least  fully  in  harmony  with  its  aristocratical  constitu- 
tion and  its  pompous  ritual.  But  under  no  circumstances  could  she 
have  become  the  devotee  of  any  religion.  Her  clear,  masculine  intel- 
lect, cold  heart,  and  iron  will,  moved  but  at  the  bidding  of  one  pas- 
sion, and  that  the  least  religious  of  all  passions,  the  love  of  power. 
Religion  was  to  her  simply  the  right  hand  of  that  power.  As  such,  it 
was  to  be  cherished  ;  but,  as  such  also,  to  be  held  in  strict  subjection, 
and  to  be  employed  in  whatever  service  would  promote  her  grand 
design.  She  was  quick  to  see  that  only  a  despotism  in  the  Church 
could  form  a  sure  basis  for  despotism  in  the  State.  Men  accustomed 
in  the  management  of  their  religious  affairs  to  freedom  of  opinion  and 
action,  would  soon  begin  to  enquire  whether  they  were  not  competent 
to  exercise  the  same  freedom  in  regard  to  all  things  which  concerned 
their  interest  and  happiness.  Popular  elections  in  the  Church  were 
dangerous  precedents  to  be  admitted  into  an  absolute  monarchy  such 
as  she  sought  to  establish  ;  while  the  habit  of  unquestioning  subjec- 
tion to  authority  in  matters  of  conscience  was  the  surest  guarantee  of 
docility  to  the  civil  power.  Under  a  government  which  united  in  one 
person  the  highest  ecclesiastical  and  the  highest  civil  authority,  this 
result  was  inevitable.     So,  accordingly,  she  willed  it  to  be. 

The  state  of  the  nation  at  her  accession  gave  free  scope  to  her  am- 
bitious plans.  Ignorant  of  their  own  rights  and  their  own  strength, 
never  yet  having  felt  the  invigorating  thrill  of  conscious  freedom,  her 
subjects  had  no  other  idea  of  security  than  that  of  clinging  like  timid 
children,  to  the  skirts  of  royalty.  Majesty  was  then  at  its  highest 
premium  in  England.  Its  frowns  were  like  the  artillery  of  heaven, 
terrible  yet  glorious  to  behold  ;  its  smile  melted  the  blessed  recipient, 
as  the  sun  melts  wax,  into  whatever  shape  it  might  please  the  imperial 

*  Burnet,  vol.  ii. 


THE   BISHOPS     BIBLE.  209 

will  to  cast  him.  Protestant  Elizabeth,  with  her  large,  self-reliant, 
dauntless  nature,  seemed  to  her  poor,  distracted  people  like  a  strong 
tower  into  which  they  might  run  and  be  safe  ;  and  every  prerogative 
which  could  be  taken  from  other  hands  and  placed  in  hers,  was  sup- 
posed to  be  so  much  gained  toward  their  well-being.  Her  first  Parlia- 
ment invested  her  with  powers  which,  though  nominally  restricted  by 
the  Constitution,  rendered  her  in  fact  absolute  by  law. 

Two  principal  enactments,  which  fixed  as  in  an  iron  mold  the  char- 
acter of  her  long  reign,  distinguished  this  session.  The  first  recog- 
nized the  royal  supremacy  in  all  causes,  ecclesiastical  and  civil  ;  the 
second  established  uniformity  in  religion  as  the  law  of  the  land.  A 
clause  in  the  first  of  these  Acts  empowered  the  Queen  and  her  succes- 
sors to  delegate  to  such  of  her  subjects  as  they  shall  think  meet,  as 
often  and  for  as  long  time  as  they  please,  "  all  manner  of  jurisdic- 
tion, privileges,  and  preeminences  touching  any  spiritual  or  ecclesias- 
tical jurisdiction  within  the  realms  of  England  and  Ireland,  to  visit, 
reform,  redress,  order,  correct,  and  amend  all  errors,  heresies, 
schisms,  abuses,  contempts,  offences,  and  enormities  whatsoever." 
Under  this  clause  originated  the  High  Commission,  an  ecclesiastical 
court  appointed  by  the  Queen,  and  accountable  to  her  alone,  through 
which  for  nearly  half  a  century  she  and  her  bishops  ruled  with  an 
iron  rod  over  the  consciences  of  her  subjects.  The  jurisdiction  of 
this  court  extended  over  the  whole  kingdom,  and  included  alike  clergy 
and  laity.  Any  three  members  of  it  were  competent  to  inquire,  "  on 
the  oath  of  twelve  men,  by  witnesses,  or  by  any  other  ways  and  means 
they  could  devise,"  *  respecting  all  offences  against  the  Acts  of 
Supremacy  and  Uniformity,  "and  also  to  inquire  of  all  heretical 
opinions,  seditious  books,  contempts,  conspiracies,  false  rumors  or 
talks,  slanderous  words  and  sayings,  etc.,  contrary  to  the  aforesaid 
laws,  or  any  others  ordained  for  the  maintenance  of  religion  in  this 
realm,  together  with  their  abettors,  counsellors,  and  coadjutors." 
Any  three  of  them — the  Primate  or  a  bishop  being  one — were  com- 
petent to  try  all  cases  of  willful  absence  from  the  divine  service,  as 
established  by  law,  and  to  punish  the  offenders  by  Church  censures, 
or  by  fines  levied  on  their  lands,  goods,  and  tenements.  Any  three 
of  them  might  try  the  holder  of  any  ecclesiastical  living  "on  matters 
of  faith  and  doctrine,  and  eject  him  at  their  discretion.  Any  six  of 
them,  whereof  some  must  be  bishops,  might  "  examine,  alter,  review, 
and  amend  the  statues  of  colleges,  cathedrals,  grammar-schools,  and 

*  "  That  is,"  says  Neal,  "  by  the  inquisition,  by  the  rack,  by  torture,  or  any 
ways  and  means  that  forty-four  sovereign  judges  should  devise"  ;  or,  it  should 
be  added,  any  three  of  them. 


2IO  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

other  public  foundations."  It  was  a  part  of  their  duty  to  tender  the 
oath  of  supremacy  to  all  ministers,  and  to  report  the  names  of  such  as 
refused  it  to  the  King's  Bench.  The  most  odious  feature  of  this 
odious  system,  was  the  power  vested  in  the  Commissioners  to  sum- 
mon before  them  any  person,  merely  upon  suspicion,  and  without 
exhibiting  any  charge  against  him,  or  confronting  him  with  witnesses, 
to  compel  him,  by  the  oath  ex  officio,  to  testify  against  himself.  Many 
were  thus  forced  not  only  to  convict  themselves,  but  their  nearest 
relatives  and  friends.  But  no  man  was  cleared  on  his  own  oath. 
This  method  of  making  a  man  his  own  accuser  in  a  court  of  justice 
was  sufficiently  detestable  in  the  hands  of  a  Romish  Bishop  or  Chan- 
cellor ;  but  in  them  it  was  consistent.  How  Protestant  bishops  and 
statesmen  could  use  it,  and  look  a  Papist  in  the  face,  is  a  riddle.  The 
mandates  of  this  court,  or  of  any  three  of  its  members,  were  made 
binding  on  "  all  justices  of  peace,  mayors,  sheriffs,  bailiffs,  consta- 
bles, and  all  other  officers,  ministers  and  subjects,  in  all  and  every 
place,  exempt  or  not  exempt,  within  the  realm  ;  neglect  of  the  same 
to  be  answered  at  their  utmost  perils."  *  They  had  their  spies  in  all 
suspected  parishes,  to  note  such  as  did  not  come  regularly  to  church  ; 
and  these  being  summoned  and  committed  to  prison,  the  keepers  were 
to  mark  such  as  came  to  visit  and  relieve  them,  and  give  information 
accordingly,  f 

A  powerful  ally  to  the  High  Commission  was  furnished  by  the  Star 
Chamber,  a  criminal  court,  likewise  appointed  by  the  Queen,  and 
responsible  to  her  alone  ;  whose  decisions,  though  merely  expressions 
of  the  royal  will,  were  made  as  binding  as  Acts  of  Parliament.  The 
High  Commission,  being  an  ecclesiastical  court,  had  some  limit  in 
the  nature  of  offences,  and  was  not  competent  to  inflict  heavier  penal- 
ties than  fines,  deprivation,  and  imprisonment  ;  though  in  both  these 
points  it  stretched  its  powers  beyond  all  legal  bounds.  But  whatever 
it  could  not  do,  the  Star  Chamber  could  ;  and  moreover,  noncon- 
formity to  the  established  Church  being  constituted  disobedience  to  the 
realm,  such  ecclesiastical  cases  as  required  severer  punishments  than 
the  former  was  competent  to  inflict,  could  be  turned  over  to  the  latter, 
which  had  the  power  of  life  and  death.  Both  bodies  being  composed 
in  part  of  the  same  men,  and  the  monarch  supreme  in  both,  they  could 
play  unchecked  into  each  others'  hands  ;  and  they  were,  in  fact,  but 
the  mutual  complements  of  that  system  of  despotic  rule  by  which  she 
was  able  to  override  constitution  and  statute,  and  reduce  her  subjects 

*  See  Strype's  Life  of  Archbishop  Grindal,  Appendix  No.  vi. —  The  Ecclesiasti- 
cal commission  granted  to  the  High  Commission,  &c. 
t  Neal,  vol.  i.,  p.  130. 


THE   BISHOPS     BIBLE.  211 

to  mere  dependents  on  her  supreme  will  and  pleasure.*  It  was  due 
to  Elizabeth's  great  personal  qualities  ;  her  self-control,  which  could 
sometimes  forbear  a  present  advantage  rather  than  endanger  a  greater 
one  to  come  ;  her  wisdom,  which  could  discern  in  the  substantial 
prosperity  of  her  realm  the  surest  basis  of  her  own  supremacy  ;  and 
to  the  further  fact  that,  having  no  standing  army  to  enforce  her  de- 
crees, her  power  rested  wholly  in  the  affection  and  confidence  of  her 
people,  that  the  nation  so  long  bowed  patiently  to  her  heavy  yoke, 
and  that  even  those  who  suffered  most,  maintained  to  the  last  their 
loyalty  and  affection  for  her  person. f 

The  Queen  had  not  far  to  look  for  instruments  to  carry  out  her 
plans.  It  was,  at  first,  her  hope  that  the  Romish  prelates  who  occu- 
pied the  high  positions  of  the  Church  at  her  accession,  would,  as  had 
been  the  case  with  Henry's  bishops,  acknowledge  her  supremacy  and 
retain  their  places.  This  expectation  proving  vain,  the  Queen  turned 
to  the  reformed  clergy.  Had  they,  at  this  moment,  stood  firmly 
united  in  the  views  entertained  by  the  great  maiority,  that  a  certain 
prescribed  cut  of  the  clerical  garb  must  not  be  made  the  condition  of 
office  in  the  Christian  church,  what  a  glorious  epoch  might  this  have 
proved  for  the  Reformation  in  England  !  For  at  this  period  of  its 
history  there  was  no  disagreement  in  respect  to  doctrine,  and  none 
that  was  insurmountable  in  respect  to  discipline  ;  and  Elizabeth  and 
her  counsellors  were  too  wise  to  have  allowed,  on  such  grounds,  a 
breach  between  herself  and  the  united  English  clergy.  Had  but  this 
seemingly  little  stumbling-block  now  been  removed  out  of  the  way,  the 
Church  would  have  been  replenished  with  a  learned,  godly  ministry, 

*  Even  that  last  refuge  of  liberty,  the  right  of  petitioning  against  existing 
grievances,  was  denied  by  this  imperious  princess,  and  that  not  to  private  indi- 
viduals alone,  but  to  Parliament  itself.  In  1586,  the  House  of  Commons,  having 
prayed  for  a  modification  in  the  Church  Constitution,  were  told  in  reply  that 
"  Her  Majesty  took  their  petition  herein  to  be  against  the  prerogative  of  her 
crown.  For  by  their  full  consents,  it  hath  been  confirmed  and  enacted,  (as  the 
truth  herein  requireth),  that  the  full  power,  authority,  jurisdiction  and  supremacy 
in  Church  causes,  which  heretofore  the  Popes  usurped  and  took  unto  themselves, 
should  be  annexed  and  united  to  the  imperial  crown  of  this  realm." — Strype's 
Life  of  IVhitgifi,  p.  260. 

f  This  was  remarkably  exemplified  in  the  case  of  Mr.  Stubbs,  a  student  of 
Lincoln's  Inn,  and  brother-in-law  of  that  distinguished  nonconformist  leader, 
Thomas  Cartright.  Stubbs  had  written  a  tract  against  the  Queen's  projected 
marriage  with  the  Duke  of  Anjou,  who,  being  a  Papist,  would,  it  was  feared,  be 
the  means  of  restoring  Romanism  in  England  ;  and  for  the  offence  was  con- 
demned to  lose  his  right  hand.  The  instant  the  cruel  sentence  was  executed,  by 
driving  a  cleaver  through  his  wrist  with  a  mallet,  he  pulled  off  his  hat  with  the 
remaining  hand  and  cried  with  a  loud  voice,  "  God  save  the  Queen  !" 


212  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

mellowed  by  recent  suffering,  yet  glowing  with  that  active,  aggressive 
zeal  for  the  Gospel  which  always  marks  the  growth-periods  of  the 
Christian  body.  But  it  was  not  so  to  be.  When  that  which  had 
hitherto  been  theory  became  a  question  of  practice,  many  faltered  in 
their  convictions.  Might  it  not  be  duty,  they  asked,  to  sacrifice  their 
feelings  on  these  unessential  points,  rather  than  leave  the  Church 
wholly  unfurnished  with  a  Protestant  ministry  ?  Should  they  not,  in- 
deed, by  this  present  small  compliance,  be  securing  the  power  neces- 
sary to  bring  all  things  right  in  the  end  ?  It  was  a  tempting  but  a 
poisoned  bait,  as  might  soon  be  discerned  by  the  change  in  the  spirit 
of  those  who  yielded.  Some  of  the  conforming  bishops  continued  to 
regard  the  contested  points  as  really  matters  of  indifference,  and  some- 
times pleaded  earnestly  for  their  brethren  whom  they  had  left  ;  but 
the  majority  quickly  caught  the  temper  of  their  royal  head,  and 
almost  outstripped  her  wishes,  at  least  her  views  of  what  was  prudent, 
by  the  vigor  with  which  they  pressed  conformity.  Thus  did  a  slight 
compromise  with  conscience  corrupt  men  whose  bearing  under  poverty, 
persecution  and  exile  had  cast  fresh  lustre  on  the  faith  which  they 
professed. 

At  this  point,  the  Protestant  host  of  England  parted  into  two  hostile 
bands,  never  again  to  reunite.  On  the  one  side  was  the  rich  and  gor- 
geous Church,  linked  indissolubly  with  the  State  ;  an  almost  absolute 
sovereign  their  common  head  ;  the  whole  legislative  and  executive 
power  of  the  kingdom  at  their  command.  On  the  other  were  a  few 
hundred  ministers,  confessedly  the  flower  of  the  English  clergy,  but  in 
regard  to  all  their  temporal  interests,  their  personal  freedom  and  even 
life,  wholly  at  the  mercy  of  their  antagonists.  The  friends  of  Protes- 
tantism abroad  beheld  the  spectacle  with  mortification  and  dismay  ; 
and  some  of  those  who  had  most  warmly  urged  on  the  adherents  of 
reform,  now  counselled  compliance  rather  than  allow  a  breach  so  dis- 
astrous to  religion,  so  favorable  to  the  resuscitation  of  Popery.  We 
who  can  look  back  not  only  upon  the  conflict  but  its  results,  bless 
that  immovable  adherence  to  principle  which  refused  to  do  evil  that 
good  might  come.  In  the  decision  of  those  Puritan  ministers  were 
involved  not  only  the  religious  but  the  civil  liberties  of  the  English 
race.  For  it  may  be  safely  affirmed  that  at  the  period  now  before  us 
no  power  less  strong  than  conscience,  the  fear  of  sinning  against 
God,  could  have  strengthened  men  to  oppose  the  sweeping  tide  of 
absolutism.  Under  the  prevailing  influences  of  the  time,  with  a  mon- 
arch like  Elizabeth,  at  once  despotic  and  popular,  wise  to  govern  and 
strong  to  defend  her  people,  civil  freedom  would  have  been  readily 
bartered  for  peace,  security,  and  Protestantism.     But  conscience  was 


THE    BISHOPS'    BIBLE.  213 

something  which  these  men  dared  not  barter.  Resistance  to  oppres- 
sion was  here  not  a  matter  at  their  option,  but  a  duty  to  God  which 
they  could  not  evade.  Their  example  became  the  starting  point  of 
free  ideas  ;  and  the  English  people  learned  at  length  to  question 
whether  they  had  been  made  for  the  sole  purpose  of  being  governed. 

The  contest  was  at  first  rather  of  a  negative  character,  consisting, 
on  the  one  side,  more  in  a  systematic  neglect  of  the  nonconforming 
clergy  than  in  positive  persecution  ;  and  on  their  part  in  a  persevering  | 
adherence  to  their  own  views  of  duty.     The  new  Primate,  Matthew j 
Parker,  had   enough   to   do  for  a  while  in  securing  his  own  position, 
and  bringing  into  order  that  numerous  body  of  the  clergy  who  still 
adhered  to  the  doctrines  of  Popery.      During  this  interval,  the  Act  of 
Uniformity  was  not  rigorously  pressed,  and  a  considerable  number  of 
ministers  who  had  not  subscribed  it  made  their  way  into  inferior  places 
in  the  Church.     These  were  the  preachers  of  England.     Where  they 
were  found,  there  was  found  also  a  new  religious  life  among  the  peo- 
ple, and  the  errors  and  superstitions  of  Popery  confessed  a  power  in 
their  zealous  labors  and  holy  examples,  not  acknowledged   in  parlia- 
mentary acts  and  royal  injunctions.     Among  them  was  Miles  Cover- 
dale,  once   Bishop   of   Exeter,   more  known   and  honored  still   as   a 
Translator  of  the  Bible  into  his  mother  tongue  ;  but  who  was  now 
thankful  to  be  allowed,  unpunished,  to  preach  the  Gospel  here  and 
there  as  he  could  find  opportunity.     Grindal,  Bishop  of  London,  a 
man  of  kind  natural  disposition,  at  length  so  far  compassionated  his 
gray  hairs  and  pitiable  state  of  poverty,  as  to  procure  for  him  in  1562 
the  little  parish  of  St.  Magnus,  London,  without  requiring  conformity. 
Among  them  was  also  John  Foxe,  whose  Book  of  Martyrs  had  done 
more  than  any  other  work  except  the  Bible  to  establish  the  Reforma- 
tion in  the  people's  hearts  ;  but  who  was  left  unprovided  for  in  the 
Church  which   he  had  laid  under  so   sacred  a  debt,  till   Cecil,   the 
Queen's  Secretary,  obtained  for  him  on  his  own  terms,  a  prebendary 
in  Salisbury  Church.*     The  universities,    moreover,  did  not  join  in 
this   wholesale  proscription   of  men   for  a  matter  of  opinion  which 
affected  neither   the   doctrine  nor  the  life.      Sampson  f    and   Hum- 
phrey, then  the  great  leaders  of  the  nonconformist  party,  were  both 
called  to  Oxford  ;  the  first,  who  had  previously  refused  the  bishopric 
of  Norwich  on  the  stipulated  condition,  as  Dean  of  Christ  church,  the 

*  In  1560,  he  describes  himself  in  a  letter  to  a  friend,  as  a  member  "  of  the 
Order  of  Mendicants,  or  of  the  Friar-Preachers"  ;  and  says  that  he  was  "  still 
wearing  the  clothes  that  England  received  him  in." 

f  Sampson,  it  will  be  remembered,  was  one  of  the  translators  of  the  Genevan 
Bible. 


214  ENGLISH    BIBLE    TRANSLATION. 

other  as  President  of  Magdalen  College,  and  were  there  held  in  the 
highest  repute  for  their  learning  and  virtue.  Under  these  circum- 
stances, the  neglect  of  the  prescribed  habits  and  ceremonies  had 
greatly  increased  in  the  Church  ;  so  that  "  the  Queen,"  as  Strype  in- 
forms us,  "  had  taken  a  great  offence  at  many  of  the  clergy,  having 
information  how  remiss  they  were,  both  in  the  university  and  out  of 
it,  especially  in  the  city  of  London,  in  wearing  the  habits  appointed 
for  the  clergy  to  use  in  time  of  ministration  and  at  other  times  ; 
chiefly  the  square  cap,  the  tippet,  and  the  surplice."  So  far  indeed 
were  the  consecrated  vestments  from  being  regarded  with  due  rever- 
ence that  they  had  become  a  jest  and  by-word  with  many  both  of  the 
clergy  and  laity,  who  called  them  the  "  conjuring  garments  of 
Popery"  ;  while  the  bishops  themselves  were  dignified  with  the  titles 
of  "  White-Coats,  and  Tippet  Gentlemen."  Some,  moreover,  had 
begun  profanely  to  inquire  :  "  Who  gave  them  authority  more  over 
me  than  I  over  them,  either  to  forbid  me  preaching,  or  to  deprive  me, 
unless  they  have  it  from  their  Holy  Father  the  Pope  ?"  *  Her 
Majesty,  therefore,  in  January  1564,  directed  her  Archbishop  and 
other  bishops  of  the  High  Commission,  "  that  orders  might  be  taken 
whereby  all  diversities  and  varieties  among  the  clergy  and  laity,  as 
breeding  nothing  but  contention  and  breach  of  common  charity,  and 
against  the  laws  and  good  usage  and  ordinances  of  the  realm,  might 
be  reformed  and  repressed,  and  brought  to  one  manner  of  uniformity 
throughout  the  realm." 

The  Archbishop  himself  thought  it  now  high  time  to  look  into 
these  irregular  proceedings,  and  to  bring  this  free-spoken  ministry 
into  a  wholesome  subjection.  The  following  list  of  the  dangerous 
varieties  in  divine  service  then  practised  by  clergymen,  is  quoted  by 
Strype  from  a  manuscript  copy  found  among  the  papers  of  Secretary 
Cecil,  dated  February  14th,  1564. 

"  Varieties  in  the  Service  and  ADMINISTRATION  used. 
Service  ana  Prayer. 

Some  say  the  Service  and  Prayers  in  the  chancel,  others  in  the  body  of  the 
Church.  Some  say  the  same  in  a  seat  made  in  the  church  ;  some  in  the  pulpit 
with  their  faces  to  the  people.  Some  say  it  with  a  surplice,  other  without  a  sur- 
plice. 

Table. 

The  table  standeth  in  the  body  of  the  church  in  some  places  ;  in  others  it 
standeth  in  the  chancel.  In  some  places  the  table  standeth  altar-wise,  distant 
from  the  wall  yard.     In  some  places  in  the  midle  of  the  chancel,  north  and  south. 

*  Strype's  Life  of  Archbishop  Parker,  p.  151. 


THE    BISHOPS'    BIBLE.  21 5 

In  some  places  the  table  is  joined  ;  in  others,  it  standeth  upon  tressels.     In  some 
it  standeth  upon  a  carpet  ;  in  others  it  hath  none. 

Administration  of  the  Communion. 

Some  witn  surplice  and  cap  ;  some  with  surplice  alone  ;  others  with  none. 
Some  with  chalice  ;  some  with  a  communion  cup  ;  others  with  a  common  cup. 
Some  with  unleavened  bread  ;  some  with  leavened. 

Receiving. 
Some  receive  kneeling,  others  standing,  others  sitting. 

Baptizing. 

Some  baptize  in  a  font  ;  some  in  a  basin.  Some  sign  with  the  sign  of  the 
cross  ;  others  sign  not.     Some  minister  in  a  i.urplice  ;  others  without. 

Apparel. 
Some  with  a  square  cap  ;  some  with  a  round  cap  ;  some  with  a  button  cap  ; 
some  with  a  hat.     Some  in  scholars'  clothes  ;  some  m  others." 

It  has  been  objected  to  the  Puritans  that  their  grounds  of  dissent 
were  trivial,  and  insufficient  to  justify  a  schism  in  the  Christian  body. 
Since  God  regards  merely  the  heart  and  not  the  dress,  or  place,  or 
posture,  why,  it  is  urged,  could  they  not  have  sacrificed  their  own 
feelings  in  these  indifferent  points,  to  the  preservation  of  Christian 
unity  ?  To  this  argument  they  replied,  at  the  time,  that  things  in 
themselves  indifferent  changed  their  nature  when  imposed  on  the 
Church  of  Christ  as  necessary,  by  a  self-constituted  power.  They 
then  became  the  test  of  a  vital  principle,  viz.,  whether  or  not  there 
resided  in  any  individual,  or  in  any  body,  ecclesiastical  or  civil,  the 
competency  of  extra-Scriptural  legislation  for  the  Church  ;  in  other 
words,  whether  the  Bible  were  the  sufficient  and  only  authoritative 
standard  for  the  Church  in  all  matters,  and  as  well  in  regard  to  her 
order  and  discipline  as  to  her  doctrine.  Elizabeth  and  her  Primate 
held  the  negative  of  this  question.  They  maintained,  that  it  was  from 
the  necessities  of  the  time  alone  that  the  apostolic  Churches  received 
their  peculiar  form,  which,  therefore,  was  temporary  and  not  to  be 
accepted  as  the  permanent  model  ;  and  that  it  belongs  to  the  govern- 
ment of  each  country  to  settle  the  organization,  rites,  and  observ- 
ances, of  that  division  of  the  Church  lying  within  its  territory,  and  to 
enforce  them  on  all  its  subjects.  The  Puritans,  on  the  contrary,  held 
to  the  sufficiency  and  binding  authority  of  the  Scriptures  in  all 
respects  ;  and  refused,  by  submission  to  ceremonies  in  themselves  in- 
different to  acknowledge  what  they  believed  an  unlawful  and  indeed 
fatal  principle. 


2l6  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

But  they  had  a  farther  objection.  What  to  the  educated  and  en- 
lightened were  things  indifferent,  were  not  so  to  the  people.  In  their 
eyes,  the  clerical  vestments  stood  for  the  doctrines  with  which  they 
had  been  accustomed  to  associate  them.  Some,  we  are  told,  now  re- 
garded the  surplice  with  a  superstitious  reverence  scarcely  exceeded 
by  that  once  felt  for  the  monk's  cowl,  a  fragment  of  which  was  looked 
on  as  the  possessor's  sure  passport  to  heaven.  The  embroidered 
cross  on  the  cope  was  to  them  the  symbol  of  image-worship.  The 
kneeling  posture  at  the  Supper,  the  chalice,  and  the  hallowed  wafer, 
to  them  recognized  the  Mass,  a  propitiatory  sacrifice  for  sin.  A  still 
larger  number  viewed  all  these  things  with  horror,  as  the  badge  of  that 
cruel  faith  which  had  lighted  the  fires  of  Smithfield,  and  drank  the 
blood  of  their  nearest  relatives,  friends,  and  neighbors,  and  of  the 
faithful  ministers  of  Christ.  While,  therefore,  the  prelates  were  seek- 
ing to  conceal  the  greenness  of  their  new  Church  from  the  popular  eye 
under  this  garb  of  antiquity,  and  to  soften  the  shock  of  change  to  the 
adherents  of  Popery  by  retaining  whatever  was  possible  of  the  shows 
of  the  old  faith,  the  nonconforming  clergy  felt  themselves  bound,  by 
the  New  Testament  law  of  brotherly  love,  to  countenance  nothing 
which  might  cause  their  weak  brother  to  offend  ;  and  claimed  that  the 
Church  of  Christ  should  be  set  forth  before  the  eyes  of  the  people,  in 
sharpest  outward  contrast  with  the  church  of  Antichrist.* 

Thus,  in  regard  to  everything  external,  the  Church  planted  itself  at 
this  crisis  on  the  Romish  ground  of  tradition  and  human  authority  ; 
the  Puritans  took  their  position  no  less  firmly  on  the  great  Protestant 
principle — the  Bible  the  only  guide  of  faith  and  practice. 

*  It  has  always  been  the  fashion  with  "  liberal  "  historians,  while  they  admit 
the  great  results  to  civil  freedom  from  the  position  taken  in  this  controversy  by 
the  Puritans,  to  sneer  at  the  position  itself  as  that  of  narrow-minded  bigots. 
Even  Mr.  Macaulay  seems  not  to  have  considered,  in  reference  to  their  case, 
(Hist.  Eng.,  vol.  i.,  p.  50),  that  things  trivial  in  themselves  may  become  greai  by 
their  relations  and  bearings.  Eve's  taking  the  apple  was  a  very  little  thing  in 
itself  ;  but  as  the  exponent  of  a  principle  it  decided  the  fate  of  a  world.  William 
Tell's  refusal  to  take  off  his  hat  to  Gessler's  pole  was  a  very  little  thing  ;  but  it 
marked  the  dividing  line  between  Swiss  slavery  and  Swiss  freedom.  The  Stamp 
Act  was  a  very  small  grievance  ;  but  as  a  test-measure  on  the  part  of  England, 
resistance  to  it  became  the  turning-point  of  American  independence.  Of  pre- 
cisely this  character  was  the  prescription  of  clerical  vestments,  and  of  a  certain 
unalterable  round  of  church  forms  ;  and  so  was  it  regarded  alike  by  those  who 
urged  and  those  who  refused  them.  "Doth  your  Lordship  think,''  thus  writes 
Parker,  on  his  death-bed,  to  Lord  Burleigh,  "  that  I  care  either  for  cap,  tippet, 
surplice,  wafer-bread,  or  any  such?  But  for  the  law  so  established  I  esteem 
them.  For  contempt  of  Law  and  Authority  would  follow  and  be  the  end  of  it, 
unless  discipline  were  used." — Slryfe  s  Life  pf  Parker,  p.   iu2. 


THE    BISHOPS'    BIBLE.  2\J 

Fully  awake  to  the  alarming  spirit  of  innovation  and  independence 
now  manifesting  itself  in  the  Church,  the  Archbishop  and  his  coadju- 
tors in  the  Commission  immediately  prepared  a  set  of  Articles  for  the 
regulation  of  divine  service,  to  which  universal  and  unvarying  con- 
formity should  be  required.  He  then  proceeded  to  cite  many  Puritan 
ministers  before  the  Commission,  and  endeavored  by  admonitions 
and  threats  to  induce  compliance.  Sampson  and  Humphrey  were 
summoned  from  their  duties  at  Oxford,  and  after  being  detained  a 
year  in  attendance  at  court,  at  great  expense  and  discomfort  to  them- 
selves, were  deprived  of  their  offices  and  thrown  into  prison,  where 
Sampson  remained  some  months.  In  1564,  a  royal  proclamation  en- 
joining uniformity  in  apparel  having  been  obtained  from  the  Queen, 
the  Archbishop  took  a  still  higher  tone,  and  fell  to  the  task  of  com- 
pelling men  to  think  alike,  in  a  spirit  more  befitting  a  Papal  legate  or 
inquisitor  than  a  Protestant  bishop.  This  year  he  cited  the  entire 
body  of  the  pastors  and  curates  of  London,  and  required  from  them  a 
promise  and  subscription  under  their  own  hands,  to  comply  with  the 
apparel  prescribed  by  law.  The  24th  of  March,  1564,  was  a  dark 
day  to  the  London  clergy.  No  remonstrance,  no  discussion  was  per- 
mitted. Beside  the  commissioners  stood  one  Robert  Coles,  (a  Lon- 
don minister  who  had  once  refused  the  habits,  but  afterward  con- 
formed), and  arrayed  in  the  prescribed  vestments,  square  cap,  tippet, 
and  priest's  robe,  all  according  to  statute.  "  My  masters  and  ye 
ministers  of  London,"  said  the  Bishop's  Chancellor,  "  the  council's 
pleasure  is  that  strictly  ye  keep  the  unity  of  apparel  like  to  this 
man  as  you  see  him  ;  that  is,  a  square  cap,  a  scholar's  gown,  priest- 
like, a  tippet,  and  in  the  church  a  linen  surplice  ;  and  inviolably  ob- 
serve the  rubric  of  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer,  and  the  Queen's 
Majesty's  injunctions  and  the  Book  of  Convocation.  Ye  that  will 
subscribe,  write  Volo  ;  ye  that  will  not  subscribe,  write  Nolo.  Be 
brief.  Make  your  words. ' '  When  some  of  the  unhappy  men,  many 
of  whom  had  wives  and  children  depending  for  support  on  their  small 
stipends,  attempted  to  speak—"  Peace,  peace  !"  cried  the  Chancel- 
lor. "  Apparitor,  ,call  over  the  churches,  and  ye  masters  answer 
presently,  sub pcena  contemptus."  "  By  these  resolute  doings,"  adds 
the  grave  narrator,  "were  many  of  the  incumbents  and  ministers 
present  mightily  surprised."  Of  the  ninety -eight,  sixty-one  were  in- 
duced, though  with  much  difficulty,  to  subscribe  ;  and  we  cannot 
doubt  that  of  these  many  returned  to  their  homes  with  a  heavier  load 
than  a  starving  family  on  their  hearts.  Some  cried  out  in  the  anguish 
of  their  spirits  :  "  We  are  killed  in  the  soul  of  our  souls  for  this  pol- 
lution of  ours  !"     Thirty  seven  steadfastly  refused  to  set  their  hands 


2l8  ENGLISH   BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

to  a  lie  ;  and  were  immediately  suspended  from  all  exercise  of  the 
ministerial  vocation,  and  threatened  with  deprivation,  if  they  dirl  not 
conform  within  three  months.  These,  by  Parker's  own  admission, 
were  the  choicest  members  of  the  London  clergy.* 

These  measures  were  followed  by  a  set  of  injunctions  for  the  Lon- 
don clergy,  "  such,"  says  Neal,  "  as  had  never  been  heard  of  in  a 
Protestant  kingdom  or  a  free  government."  Every  clergyman  who 
had  cure  of  souls  was  obliged  to  swear  obedience:  "  i.  To  all  the 
Queen's  injunctions  and  letters  patent  ;  2.  To  all  letters  from  lords 
of  the  privy  council  ;  3.  To  the  articles  and  injunctions  of  the  metro- 
politan ;  4.  To  the  articles  and  mandates  of  their  bishop,  archdeacon, 
chancellors,  somners,  receivers,  etc.,  and  in  a  word  to  be  subject  to 
the  control  of  all  their  superiors  with  patience."  To  forestall  all  pos- 
sibility of  evading  these  demands,  from  four  to  eight  informers  were 
appointed  in  each  parish  to  watch  over  the  conformity  of  both  clergy 
and  laity,  and  give  their  testimony  accordingly,  whenever  required. 

Could  men  with  any  conscience,  with  a  spark  of  honor  or  self- 
respect,  submit  to  a  slavery  like  this  ?  Miles  Coverdale  could  not 
keep  his  little  living  on  these  terms  ;  but  old  and  infirm  as  he  was, 
being  now  eighty  years  of  age,  he  preferred  to  risk  the  bread  and 
shelter  for  his  last  days  rather  than  soil  his  conscience.  But  he  felt 
in  his  soul  a  commission  as  minister  of  Christ  which  no  mortal  could 
recall  ;  and  he  continued,  though  with  much  fear  and  caution,  to 
preach  the  Gospel  in  and  about  London  till  near  his  death  in  1567. 
It  had  been  determined  to  make  an  example  of  John  Foxe,  by  way  of 
striking  terror  into  his  less  distinguished  brethren.  But  the  sturdy 
old  Puritan  was  more  than  a  match  for  them.  When  required  to 
subscribe,  he  drew  his  Greek  New  Testament  from  his  pocket,  say- 
ing :  "  To  this  will  I  subscribe."  To  the  threat  of  deprivation  he 
replied  :  "  I  have  nothing  in  the  Church  but  a  prebendary  in  Salis- 
bury, and  much  good  may  it  do  you  if  you  take  it  from  me."  Their 
resolution  failed,  and  they  did  not  venture  to  touch  a  man  so  dear  to 
the  whole  nation  as  the  historian  of  the  martyrs. 

A  letter  addressed  in  1566  by  Coverdale,  Samgson  and  Humphrey 
to  several  of  the  leading  Swiss  reformers,  gives  some  idea  of  the 
state  of  distress  then  existing. 

*  Strype's  Lives  of  Archbishops  Grinclal  and  Parker.  The  incidents  of  the 
above  account  are  taken  from  the  former  work,  where  they  are  most  fully  given  ; 
the  number  of  ministers  present,  and  the  proportion  between  the  subscribers  and 
non-subscribers,  from  the  latter  ;  which  being  the  later  work,  and  the  statement 
made  on  the  authority  of  Archbishop  Parker,  who  had  the  names  before  him,  is 
undoubtedly  correct. 


THE   BISHOPS'    BIBLE.  219 

"  Our  affairs,"  they  write,  "  are  not  altered  for  the  better,  but,  alas  !  are  sadly 
deteriorated.  For  it  is  now  settled  and  determined  that  an  unleavened  cake  must 
be  used  in  place  of  common  bread  ;  that  the  communion  must  be  received  by  the 
people  on  their  bended  knees  ;  that  out  of  doors  must  be  worn  the  square  cap, 
bands,  a  long  gown,  and  tippet  ;  while  the  white  surplice  and  cope  are  to  be  re- 
tained in  divine  service.  And  those  who  refuse  to  comply  with  these  require- 
ments are  deprived  of  their  estates,  dignities,  and  every  ecclesiastical  office  ;  viz., 
brethren  by  brethren  and  bishops,  whose  houses  are,  at  this  time,  the  prisons  of 
some  preachers  ;  who  are  now  raging  against  their  own  bowels  ;  who  are  now 
imposing  these  burdens  not  only  on  their  own  persons,  but  also  on  the  shoulders 
of  others  ;  and  this  too  at  a  time  when,  in  the  judgment  of  all  learned  men,  they 
ought  to  have  been  removed  and  abolished  altogether." 

But  this  is  not  the  place  for  the  details  of  that  memorable  conflict. 
The  brief  sketch  just  given  of  its  incipient  stages  exhibits  its  grounds 
and  the  spirit  in  which  it  was  conducted  sufficiently  for  the  purpose 
of  our  present  history.  As  was  inevitable,  the  breach  continually 
widened.  Multiplied  exactions  and  increased  rigor  on  the  one  side, 
rising  at  length  to  a  denial  of  all  the  inborn  rights  of  man,  freedom  of 
action,  speech  and  thought,  were  met  by  increased  firmness  of  resist- 
ance, and  a  bold  questioning  of  the  very  foundations  of  the  Church, 
from  which  the  persecuted  had  at  first  only  differed  in  some  minor 
particulars.  The  weapons  used  by  the  two  great  parties  in  the  con- 
flict were  in  harmony  with'  the  fundamental  principles  on  which  they 
had  respectively  taken  their  stand.  On  the  side  of  the  ruling  party, 
the  forcible  repression  of  discussion  ;  the  limitation  and  rigid  censor- 
ship of  the  press  ;*  the  seizure  of  pious  men  and  women  who  had  met 

*  See  the  "  Rules  and  Ordinances  made  and  set  forth  by  the  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury  and  Lords  of  the  Privy  Council,  in  the  Star  Chamber,  for  redressing 
abuses  in  Printing";  Strype's  Life  of  Whitgift,  Appendix  No.  XXIV.  By  this 
extraordinary  instrument  every  printer  was  required  to  deliver  within  ten  days 
from  its  date,  an  inventory  of  the  number  of  his  presses  and  of  all  his  imple- 
ments, on  pain  of  their  seizure  and  destruction,  and  twelve  months'  personal  im- 
prisonment "  without  bail  or  mainprize. "  No  person  should  hereafter  set  up  a 
press  anywhere  except  in  London  and  its  suburbs,  (one  excepted  in  each  Uni- 
versity), nor  within  those  limits  except  by  leave  of  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury 
and  Bishop  of  London,  on  the  same  penalty  ;  with  the  addition  of  being  disabled 
forever  from  owning  or  managing  a  press,  or  being  connected  with  the  business 
in  any  way  except  as  a  journeyman  for  wages,  No  person  should  continue  to 
use  or  occupy  a  press  erected  within  the  previous  six  months,  on  the  penalty  first 
named.  No  person  should  print  a  book  not  authorized  by  the  Archbishop  or  the 
Bishop  of  London,  on  penalty  of  the  loss  of  his  instruments,  six  months'  impris- 
onment without  bail,  and  perpetual  disability  to  exercise  or  derive  any  benefit 
from  his  trade.  No  person  should  sell,  bind,  stitch,  or  sew  any  book  not  thus 
authorized  on  pain  of  three  months'  imprisonment.  All  workshops  and  ware- 
houses of  printers,  booksellers,  and  bookbinders,  and  all  private  houses   were  to 


220  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

quietly  to  worship  God  ;  the  monopoly  of  schools  ;*  the  inquisito- 
rial tribunals  which  arraigned  men  on  suspicion,  and  condemned  them 
on  their  own  forced  confessions,  or  the  testimony  of  secret  inform- 
ers,! to  prison,  exile,  mutilation  and  hanging  ;  take  us  back  to  the 
days  of  Henry  IV.,  and  we  ask  with  a  bewildered  feeling,  "  Is  this 
.the  Reformation  ?"  On  the  other  side,  in  the  measures  of  the  Puri- 
tans we  recognize  those  moral  weapons  with  which  the  victories  of 
truth  have  ever  been  won  ;  viz.,  the  calm  but  unflinching  exercise  of 
the  rights  of  conscience,  and  the  steadfast  passive  endurance  of  the 
penalties  thereby  incurred.  They  preached,  they  wrote,  they  peti- 
tioned, and  they  suffered,  through  more  than  a  generation,  with  a 
resolution  and  constancy  which  nothing  could  subdue.  The  usual 
result  followed.  The  cause  of  the  persecuted  grew  by  being  trodden 
on  ;  and  before  the  scepter  dropped  from  the  hand  of  the  aged 
Queen,  not  only  a  majority  of  the  middle  and  lower  ranks  and  of  the 
House  of  Commons,  but  a  powerful  party  in  the  Court  itself,  gave 
their  entire  sympathy  to  the  advocates  of  religious  freedom.  The 
end  of  the  battle  was  indeed  yet  far  off  ;  but  the  moral  convictions  of 
the  nation  indicated  with  prophetic  certainty  what  that  end  would  be. 

be  open  to  search  for  books  printed  in  contrariety  to  these  ordinances,  and  all 
persons  implicated  in  the  printing,  selling,  uttering,  binding,  stitching,  or  sewing 
of  the  same,  to  be  apprehended  for  trial  before  the  High  Commission,  or  three 
of  its  members,  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  or  Bishop  of  London  being  one. 
"  For  the  avoiding  of  the  excessive  number  of  Prhuets  in  this  realm,"  it  is  made 
unlawful  for  any  printer,  bookseller,  or  bookbinder  in  London  to  keep  more  than 
three  apprentices,  and  for  the  printers  at  Oxford  and  Cambridge  more  than  a 
single  apprentice  at  one  time.  Under  these  regulations,  the  Press  seemed  likely 
to  become  a  very  dutiful  handmaid  of  the  monarchy  and  priesthood  ;  but  the 
result  reflects  little  glory  on  the  sagacity  of  those  who  devised  them. 

*  In  1591  it  was  made  a  pre-requisite  to  a  schoolmaster's  license,  that  he 
should  take  the  oath  of  supremacy  and  subscribe  the  Articles  of  Uniformity  ;  a 
measure  "  thought  convenient,"  says  Strype,  "  to  prevent  the  influence  the 
Puritans  might  have  on  the  minds  of  children." — Life  of  Whitgift,  p.  377. 

\  When  Udal,  a  nonconformist  preacher,  was,  in  1590,  tried  for  his  life  at 
the  Court  of  Assize  in  Croydon,  (having  had  a  preliminary  trial  on  the  same 
chirges  before  the  Commission,  and  suffered  a  year's  imprisonment  uncon- 
demned),  no  witnesses  against  him  were  brought  into  court,  but  the  registrar 
merely  swore  to  their  examinations.  When  the  prisoner,  standing  before  his 
judges  with  his  legs  in  irons,  offered  to  produce  witnesses  in  his  defence,  he  was 
told  that  "  because  the  witnesses  were  against  the  Queen's  Majesty,  they  could 
not  be  heard  !" — Neal,  vol.  i.,  p.  191. 


CHAPTER    XXVII. 

THE    BISHOPS'    BIBLE    CONTINUED. 

It  was  near  the  close  of  the  year  1565,  just  as  the  plans  of  Arch- 
bishop Parker  for  the  repression  of  dissent  were  fully  matured,  and  he 
had  fairly  entered  on  the  work  to  which  the  remaining  ten  years  of  his 
life  were  devoted,  when  John  Bodleigh  made  his  application  to  Cecil 
in  behalf  of  the  Genevan  Version. 

With  the  events  narrated  in  the  preceding  chapter  before  the  mind, 
it  is  easy  to  see  the  relations  of  the  course  then  adopted  in  reference 
to  that  version,  to  the  general  policy  by  which  the  Primate  sought  to 
secure  universal  conformity  to  the  State  Church. 

The  Bible  "  authorized  to  be  read  in  churches,"  was  Cranmer's 
Revision,  the  Great  Bible,  so-called,  which  had  never  been  in  high 
repute  for  its  critical  accuracy,  and  was  now  wholly  eclipsed  by  the 
superior  scholarship  of  the  Genevan  Version.  The  latter  was  the 
Bible  of  the  Puritans.  The  associations  of  its  birth  were  Presby- 
terian. It  stood  forth  before  the  eyes  of  the  nation  as  the  symbol  at 
once  of  Progress  and  of  Dissent  ;  while  it  was,  at  the  same  time,  the 
most  efficient  agent  in  awakening  the  popular  mind  to  the  claims  of 
religion,  and  planting  therein  the  principles  of  godliness  and  virtue. 
And  thus  it  happened  that  just  in  proportion  to  the  extent  of  its  use- 
fulness was  it  dangerous  to  the  peculiar  interests  of  the  Establish- 
ment. A  Popish  Bishop  in  the  Primate's  place  would  have  laid  his 
hands  at  once  on  this  source  of  schism  ;  neither  hesitating  to  de- 
nounce it  as  unsafe  for  the  ignorant  and  undiscriminating  rabble,  nor 
to  dispose  of  it  by  the  summary  method  of  seizure  and  bonfires. 
This  the  spirit  of  Protestantism,  a  spirit  created  by  the  Bible  itself, 
would  no  longer  allow.  Nor,  indeed,  have  we  any  ground  for  suppos- 
ing that  Archbishop  Parker  would  have  resorted  to  violence,  though 
he  had  been  fully  sustained  by  public  opinion.  Nevertheless,  it  was 
essential  to  his  plans  that  the  Church,  which  claimed  to  be  the  exclu- 
sive spiritual  authority  in  the  realm,  should  also  be  the  exclusive 
spiritual  teacher.  To  her,  and  not  to  any  rival  influence,  must  the 
people  look  for  the  supply  of  their  religious  wants,  and  for  every 
privilege  which  they  enjoyed  as  a  Christian  nation. 

To  the  Protestant  bishop  two  courses  lay  open  for  accomplishing 


222  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

this  object  ;  the  one,  by  drawing  the  Genevan  Version  within  the  con- 
secrated pale,  and  stamping  it  with  episcopal  patronage,  to  engraft  on 
the  popular  favorite  associations  advantageous  to  the  Church  ;  the 
other,  to  supersede  it  by  a  new  version,  emanating  directly  from  the 
Church.*  The  first  was  attempted  unsuccessfully.  Mr.  Bodleigh 
did  not  accede  to  their  proposal  of  pledging  himself  never  to  bring 
out  an  edition  without  their  "  advice,  consent,  and  direction  ;  and 
as  the  consequence,  for  more  than  ten  years  longer,  or  till  1576,  the 
Family  Bible  of  England  was  never  printed  on  English  ground,  and 
the  first  English  impression  immediately  followed  the  death  of  Arch- 
bishop Parker. f  Public  sentiment  ascribed  this  delay,  which  of 
course  much  impeded  its  circulation,  to  the  jealousy  of  the  bishops  ; 
and  it  was  thought  a  sore  grievance  that  a  version  of  the  Bible  which 
could  be  charged  with  no  fault,  should  be  thus  arbitrarily  kept  from 
the  multitudes  who  were  hungering  and  thirsting  for  its  instructions. 
The  second  course,  that  of  preparing  a  new  version,  was  within  the 
Primate's  own  control  ;  and  at  the  time  of  Mr.  Bodleigh's  application 
measures  were  already  in  progress  for  this  object.  The  result 
appeared  in  the  year  1568,  when  the  so-called  Bishops'  Bible  was 
given  to  the  public. 

Strype,  in  his  Life  of  Parker,  thus  speaks  of  the  design,  and  of  the 
method  pursued  in  executing  it  : 

"  Among  the  noble  designs  of  this  Archbishop  must  be  reckoned  his  resolution 
to  have  the  Holy  Bible  set  forth,  well  translated  into  the  vulgar  tongue,  for  pri- 
vate use,  as  well  as  for  the  use  of  churches  ;  and  to  perform  that  which  his  pre- 
decessor, Archbishop  Cranmer,  endeavored  so  much  to  bring  to  pass,  but  could 
not,  (the  bishops  in  his  days  being  most  of  them  utterly  averse  to  any  such 
thing)  that  is,  that  the  bishops  should  join  together,  and  take  their  parts  and 
portions  in  revising,  amending  and  setting  forth,  the  English  translation  of  those 
Holy  books.  This  our  present  Archbishop's  thoughts  much  ran  upon.  And  he 
had  about  this  time  (15C5)  distributed  the  Bible,  divided  into  parts,  to  divers  of  his 
learned  fellow-bishops,   and  to  some  other  divines  that  were  about  him,  who 

*  This,  probably,  was  the  ultimate  design  in  any  case.  The  Genevan  Bible 
might  be  made  to  answer  a  good  purpose  till  the  new  version  was  ready  to  be 
"  set  forth  by  authority,"  after  which  it  would  be  at  their  own  choice  to  suppress 
it  at  once,  or  to  withdraw  it  gradually  from  public  view,  as  should  seem  most 
judicious. 

f  Strype,  in  accounting  for  the  failure  of  Bodleigh's  application,  remarks 
somewhat  naively  :  "  Whatever  the  cause  were,  it  was  not  surely  from  any  dis- 
couragement the  translation  received  from  the  bishops.  For  they,  by  the  fore- 
quoted  letter,  under  their  hands,  like  and  approve  it,  and  recommend  the  under- 
takers to  the  Secretary,  to  procure  for  them  the  Queen's  license  to  reprint  it. 
Unless  the  reason  were  that  they  were  loath  to  subscribe  to  the  terms  that  were 
demanded  by  the  bishops." — Life  of  Parker,  p.  207. 


THE   BISHOPS     BIBLE   CONTINUED.  223 

cheerfully  undertook  the  work.  .  .  .  The  Archbishop  took  upon  him  the 
labor  to  contrive  and  set  the  whole  work  agoing  in  a  proper  method,  by  sorting 
out  the  whole  Bible  into  parcels,  as  was  said,  and  distributing  these  parcels  to 
the  bishops  and  other  learned  men  to  peruse,  and  collate  each,  the  book  or 
books  allotted  them  ;  sending  withal  his  instructions  for  the  method  they  should 
observe  ;  and  they  to  add  some  short  marginal  notes  for  the  illustration  or  cor- 
rection of  the  text.  And  all  these  portions  of  the  Bible  being  finished,  and  sent 
back  to  the  Archbishop,  he  was  to  add  the  last  hand  to  them,  and  so  to  take  care 
for  printing  and  publishing  the  whole." 

Fifteen  learned  men,  most  of  them  bishops,  were  employed  on  this 
work.  The  precise  time  when  it  was  commenced  is  not  known  ;  but 
it  could  not  have  been  later  than  1564,  as  we  find  Sandys,  Bishop  of 
Worcester,  ready  with  his  portion  (Judges,  Kings,  and  Chronicles)  at 
the  beginning  of  the  next  year.  In  a  letter  which  accompanied  it,  he 
urges  the  prosecution  of  the  revision  in  the  most  thorough  manner  ; 
"  that  it  may  be  done  in  such  perfection  that  the  adversaries  can 
have  no  occasion  to  quarrel  with  it.  Which  thing,"  he  adds,  "  will, 
require  a  time.  Sed  sat  cito,  si  sat  bene  " — [but  soon  enough,  if  well 
enough].  In  accordance  with  this  sound  advice,  the  work  seems  to 
have  been  performed  with  praiseworthy  diligence  ;  though,  from 
causes  presently  to  be  mentioned,  not  with  very  satisfactory  results. 
It  was  published  in  1568. 

Archbishop  Parker's  Preface  to  the  new  Bible  contains  many  sensi- 
ble and  pious  thoughts,  and  breathes  a  liberal  Protestant  spirit, 
widely  in  contrast  with  that  displayed  in  his  treatment  of  noncon- 
formists. The  remembrance  of  that  treatment,  and  of  his  previous 
indifference  to  the  cry  of  the  nation  for  a  more  abundant  supply  of 
the  Scriptures,  does  indeed  much  qualify  the  pleasure  with  which  we 
should  otherwise  read  it.  Had  he  felt  Cranmer's  enthusiasm  for  the 
principles  of  the  Reformation,  and  that  its  sheet-anchor  was  the  Bible, 
his  course  would  have  been  different.  But  it  is  too  evident  that 
episcopacy  was  still  dearer  to  him  than  the  Reformation,  and  that  his 
reliance  for  its  establishment  was  the  sword  of  the  magistrate  rather 
than  the  word  of  God.  And  hence,  while  he  was  pursuing  "  the  pre- 
cise brethren'  (his  favorite  designation  of  the  dissenters)  with  deadly 
animosity,  silencing  faithful  preachers,  and  imprisoning  Christian  peo- 
ple who  sought  spiritual  nourishment  elsewhere  than  from  empty  pul- 
pits, or  those  filled  by  incompetent,  worldly,  or  vicious  men,  by  his 
own  confession  "  very  many  churches  wanted  Bibles/'  Nor  can  he  be 
charged  merely  with  neglect  in  this  particular,  when  his  influence  was 
employed  for  the  discouragement,  against  the  earnest  wishes  of  the 
people,  of  a  version  whose  excellencies  he  could  not  deny.     Yet  with 


224  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

all  these  abatements,  we  cannot  but  rejoice  over  sentiments  like  the 
following,  from  the  pen  of  the  rigorous  Primate  ;  for  they  indicate  a 
public  opinion  in  favor  of  the  Bible,  too  deeply  rooted  and  too  full  of 
life  to  be  safely  resisted  or  neglected  by  the  highest  in  place  and 
strongest  in  power. 

"  Antichrist  must  he  be  that,  under  whatsoever  color,  would  give  contrary 
precept  or  counsel  to  that  which  Christ  did  give  us.  Very  little  do  they  resemble 
Christ's  loving  spirit,  moving  us  to  search  for  our  comfort,  that  will  discourage 
us  from  such  searching,  or  that  would  wish  ignorance  or  forgetfulness  of  his 
benefits  to  reign  in  us,  so  that  they  might,  by  our  ignorance,  reign  the  more 
frankly  in  our  consciences,  to  the  danger  of  our  salvation.  Who  can  take  the 
light  from  us  in  this  miserable  vale  of  blindness,  and  not  mean  to  have  us  stum- 
ble in  the  paths  of  perdition,  to  the  ruin  of  our  souls  ?  Who  will  envy  us  this 
bread  of  life,  prepared  and  set  on  the  table  for  our  eternal  sustenance,  and  mean 
not  to  famish  us,  or  instead  thereof,  with  their  corrupt  traditions  and  doctrines 
of  men,  to  infect  us  ?  .  .  .  Search,  therefore,  good  reader,  (in  God's  name), 
as  Christ  biddeth  thee,  the  Holy  Scriptures,  wherein  thou  mayest  find  thy  salvation. 
Let  not  the  volume  of  this  book,  (by  God's  own  warrant),  depart  from  thee  ;  but 
occupy  thyself  therein  in  the  whole  journey  of  this  thy  worldly  pilgrimage,  to 
understand  thy  way  how  to  walk  rightly  before  Him  all  the  days  of  thy  life." 

In  reference  to  the  cavils  of  the  Romanists,  who  decried  every  exist- 
ing translation  into  the  mother  tongue,  yet  never  themselves  put  hand 
to  the  work  of  supplying  one  which  was  more  correct,  he  makes  the 
pertinent  inquiry  : 

"  What  manner  of  translation  may  men  think  to  look  for  at  their  hands,  if  they 
should  translate  the  Scriptures  to  the  comfort  of  God's  elect,  which  they  never 
did,  nor  be  not  like  to  propose  it,  but  be  rather  studious  only  to  seek  quarrels  in 
other  men's  well-doings,  to  pick  fault  where  none  is  ;  and  where  any  is  escaped 
through  human  negligence,  then  to  cry  out  with  their  tragical  exclamations,  but 
in  no  wise  to  amend  by  the  spirit  of  charity  and  lenity  that  which  might  be  more 
aptly  put  ?" 

In  apologizing  for  thus  adding  another  translation  to  the  many 
previously  made,  he  quotes  the  words  of  Augustine,  that  "  though  in 
the  primitive  Church  the  late  interpreters  which  did  translate  the 
Scriptures  be  innumerable,  yet  wrought  this  rather  a  help  than  an  im- 
pediment to  the  readers,  if  they  be  not  too  negligent.  For  saith  he, 
divers  translations  have  made,  many  times,  the  harder  and  darker 
sentences  the  more  open  and  plain."  The  Archbishop  pleads,  there- 
fore, that  no  one  should  take  offence  at  this  new  attempt  at  transla- 
tion, inasmuch  as  it  was  neither  intended  to  reflect  on  any  other,  or 
to  claim  perfection,  "  as  that  hereafter  might  follow  no  other  that 
might    see    that    which    as    yet   was    not    understanded."     In    these 


THE    BISHOPS'    BIBLE    CONTINUED.  225 

remarks,  the  Archbishop  probably  had  one  eye  on  those  who  opposed 
all  change  in  the  authorized  version  as  a  dangerous  innovation  ;  and 
the  other  on  the  Puritans,  whose  attachment  to  their  favorite  version 
was  not  wholly  free  from  party  prejudice,  many  of  them  being  unable, 
as  was  said,  "  to  see  the  sense  of  Scripture,  except  through  the  Gene- 
van spectacles." 

And  yet,  with  these  liberal  sentiments  on  the  face  of  his  translation, 
the  Archbishop's  first  move  after  its  completion  was  the  attempt  to 
obtain  from  the  Queen  an  exclusive  license  for  it  as  the  one  "to  be 
only  commended  in  public  reading  in  churches,  to  draw  to  one  uni- 
formity" This  favor  he  requests,  "  not  only  as  many  churches  want 
their  books,  but  as  that  in  certain  places  be  publicly  used  some  trans- 
lations which  have  not  been  labored  in  this  realm."*  In  other  words, 
two  grievances  are  to  be  redressed  by  her  Majesty's  countenance  of 
the  new  version  ;  the  churches  destitute  of  Bibles  are  to  be  supplied,  and 
the  churches  supplied  with  the  Genevan  version  are  to  exchange  them  for 
the  one  furnished  and  authorized  by  her  Majesty  and  the  bishops. 

The  Bishops'  Bible  was,  in  some  respects,  an  advance  on  that  of 
Cranmer.  The  omission  of  the  additions  from  the  Vulgate  was  a 
marked  improvement  ;  and  many  single  passages  were  changed  for 
the  better  (some  also  for  the  worse)  by  the  substitution  of  the  Genevan 
renderings.  But  it  contributed  little  that  was  new  to  the  stock  of  bibli- 
cal knowledge.  For  this  there  were  several  causes.  First  and  chiefly, 
the  want  of  profound  scholarship  in  the  translators — learning  being 
made  subordinate  to  official  position,  in  the  selection  of  translators, 
by  the  object  designed  to  be  secured.  The  new  Bible  must  be  as 
good  as  bishops  could  make  it  ;  but  it  must  be  a  Bishop's  Bible. 
England  did  not  lack  for  scholars.  The  same  men  whose  ripe  learn- 
ing had  produced  the  Genevan  version  still  lived  in  the  prime  and 
fullness  of  their  powers,  and  there  were  other  English  scholars  in  all 
respects  their  equals.  But  it  was  the  silent  policy  of  the  Church  to 
recognize  no  merit  in  nonconformists  ;  and  unfortunately  the  best 
talent  and  culture  of  the  realm  were  thus  buried  from  public  use. 

Another  cause  of  the  inferiority  of  the  version  was  the  rule  laid 
down  by  Archbishop  Parker,  of  deviating  as  little  as  possible  from 
the  old  authorized  version  ;  a  rule  which  must  necessarily  produce  an 
imperfect  work,  whatever  may  be  the  ability  of  the  scholars  by  whom 
it  is  executed.  To  this  rule  there  was,  indeed,  one  remarkable  ex- 
ception. The  uniform  rendering  of  ecclesia  by  congregation  formed 
one  of  the  characteristic  features  of  the  earlier  versions,  and  was  ac- 

*  Parker's  Letter  to  Cecil,  quoted  in  Anderson's  Annals,  vol.  ii.,  p.  333. 


226  ENGLISH    BIBLE    TRANSLATION. 

counted  of  primary  importance,  as  representing  to  the  English  mind 
the  generic  idea  of  visible  Christianity  as  a  community  of  equals.  This 
was  the  point  in  Tyndale's  version  against  which  Sir  Thomas  More 
directed  his  most  powerful  batteries.  Coverdale,  though  allowing  a 
false  liberality  to  give  a  Popish  tinge  to  his  version  in  some  other 
respects,  never  deviated  in  this  from  the  Protestant  principle.  Cran- 
mer,  though  his  zeal  for  the  Anglican  Church  was  not  scrupulous  in 
its  choice  of  means,  maintained  this  feature  of  the  English  Bible  in 
unimpaired  integrity.  In  the  "  authorized  version,"  as  left  by  him 
and  found  by  Archbishop  Parker,  ccclesia  is  rendered,  in  every  in- 
stance without  exception,  "  congregation."  *  It  was  therefore  a  very 
bold  step,  when  the  latter  took  the  responsibility  of  a  total  change  in 
this  particular,  by  uniformly  displacing  "  congregation,"  and  putting 
"  church"  in  its  stead. \  The  controversy  was  no  new  one  to  him. 
He  has  himself  recorded  that  this  was  one  of  the  matters  in  debate 
when  the  Synod  of  Bishops,  under  Henry  VIII.,  took  into  considera- 
tion the  subject  of  a  new  translation.  "  There  was  then,"  says  he,  \ 
"  a  discussion  [in  the  Synod]  about  the  significance  and  force  of  cer- 
tain words  ;  as  whether  Dominus  should  be  rendered  from  the  sacred 
writings  in  English  '  the  Lord  '  or  '  our  Lord  '  ;  and  whether  ecclcsia 
should  be  translated  '  the  congregation  '  or  '  the  church  '  ;  also, 
whether  caritas  should  be  expressed  by  '  charity  '  or  '  love.'  "  He 
knew  well  which  was  the  Protestant  and  which  the  Romish  ground  in 
this  debate.  His  choice  of  the  latter  needs  no  explanation,  except 
that  furnished  by  the  character  of  the  rejected  word,  as  indicating  the 
original  democratic  constitution  of  the  Christian  body.  The  time  had 
now  come  when  Sir  Thomas  More's  idea  of  The  Church  was  to  be 
realized  in  Protestant  England  ;  and  the  Primate  saw,  with  Sir 
Thomas,  that  this  could  not  be  done  so  long  as  the  true  idea  still  lay 
on  the  face  of  the  vernacular  Bible.  In  this,  King  James'  Revision 
followed  that  of  the  bishops  ;  and  thus  the  word  for  which  Tyndale 
had  so  earnestly  contended,  the  word  which  had  stood  on  the  sacred 

*  The  word  "  church  "  occurs  but  once  in  Cranmer's  Bible,  and  then  as  the 
translation  of  the  Greek  word  for  a  temple  or  sacred  edifice. 

\  With  a  remarkable  exception  in  Matt,  xvi.,  18.  There,  the  rendering  of 
Cranmer's  Bible  was  suffered  to  remain  unchanged — "  And  I  say  a/so  unto  thet 
that  thou  art  Peter;  and  upon  this  rock  I  will  build  my  congregation."  The 
troublesome  use  of  this  passage  by  the  rival  Church  of  Rome  sulliciently  explain.', 
this  silent  deviation  from  uniformity.  The  only  other  instance  is  Hebrews 
xii.,  23 — "  And  unto  llie  congregation  of  the  first  born,  ~oliich  are  written  in 
heaven.'  The  constitution  of  the  Church  militant  was  the  object  of  the  Primate  J 
solicitude — not  that  of  the  Church  triumphant. 

%  De  Antiq.  Britan.  Eccle.  p.  505  ;  (Harvard  Library;. 


THE    BISHOPS'    BIL5LE    CONTINUED.  22'] 

page  as  an  incorruptible  witness  against  priestly  usurpation,  was 
thenceforward  blotted  from  the  English  Scriptures.  In  this  feature  of 
the  Bishop's  Bible  we  find  a  motive  for  the  undertaking,  not  less 
strong  than  the  opposition  felt  to  the  general  influence  of  the  Genevan 
version.*  We  can  now  understand  how  this  Bible,  if  established  by 
authority  as  the  only  one  to  be  publicly  read  in  churches,  might  plat- 
an important  part  "  in  drawing  to  one  uniformity." 

It  was  but  natural  that  Archbishop  Parker  should  wish  to  secure  to 
the  English  Church  (to  use  the  term  in  the  Primate's  sense)  the  ad- 
vantage of  furnishing  the  Bible  both  for  public  worship  and  for  the 
private  use  of  the  people.  Had  he  sought  this  object  with  a  liberality 
suited  to  his  vast  income,  and  in  a  manner  worthy  of  so  difficult  and 
so  sacred  a  work  ;  employing  the  best  scholars,  furnishing  them  with 
the  needed  apparatus,  and  requiring  from  them  nothing  but  a  faithful 
rendering  of  the  inspired  original  ;  the  good  and  wise  of  every  age, 
and  of  every  division  of  the  Christian  body,  would  have  honored  him 
as  one  of  the  world's  benefactors.  The  savor  of  episcopal  associa- 
tions thus  transferred  to  the  English  Bible,  would  have  been  fairly 
earned.  But  no  man,  no  Church,  has  the  right,  for  any  purpose,  to 
make  God's  word  speak  differently  from  itself  ;  f  or  to  obscure  its 
meaning  even  in  the  smallest  particular,  to  the  common  eye.  As  the 
first  English  version  undertaken  for  a  less  generous  object  than  the 
extension  of  truth,  and  executed  on  the  principle  of  making  as  little 
advance  as  the  requirements  of  the  age  would  permit,  it  must  be  re- 
garded by  the  true  Protestant  rather  with  regret  than  satisfaction. 

In  1572  a  revised  edition  of  the  Bishops'  Bible  was  published,  to 
which  Lawrence,  a  Greek  scholar  celebrated  for  his  critical  accuracy, 
contributed  a  number  of  emendations.  J  In  1584,  under  Archbishop 
Whitgift,  the  readings  from  the  Vulgate,  omitted  by  the  first  revisers, 
but  which  had  been  retained  unmarked  in  the  Book  of  Common 
Prayer,  were  replaced  in   the  Bishops'    Bible.      It  was  important   to 

*  The  Genevan  version  used  the  words  "  church  "  and  "  congregation"  inter- 
changeably, and  with  about  equal  frequency.  This  variation  from  the  practice 
of  the  previous  versions  had  perhaps  some  connection  with  the  State-church  ele- 
ment of  the  Presbyterianism  of  that  time  ;  but  it  at  least  respected  the  rights  of 
the  English  reader,  by  giving,  with  the  ecclesiastical  term,  the  English  term  which 
clearly  denned  and  explained  it. 

f  A  singular  example  of  this  is  furnished  by  the  suggestion  of  Guest,  bishop 
of  Rochester  :  viz.,  of  conforming  those  passages  in  the  Psalms,  quoted  in  the 
New  Testament  from  the  Septuagint,  to  the  readings  there  found — "  for  the 
avoiding,"  as  he  writes  to  Parker,  "  of  the  offence  that  may  rise  to  people  upon 
divers  translations." — Strype's  Life  of  Parker,  p.  208. 

\  A  list  of  these  is  given  by  Strype  in  the  Appendix  to  the  Life  of  Parker. 


228  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

the  Church  that  her  Bible  and  her  Liturgy  should  show  no  disagree- 
ment ;  and  since  the  latter  could  not  be  altered  without  'the  concur- 
rence of  the  Queen  and  Parliament,  the  old  readings  were  quietly 
slipped  back  into  the  Bible  ;  and,  in  order  to  complete  the  uni- 
formity, they  were  left  unmarked  as  in  the  Prayer  Book.  Seventeen 
of  these  interpolations  occur  in  the  Book  of  Psalms,  one  of  them  (in 
Ps.  xiv.)  including  three  entire  verses.  This  is  the  most  remarkable 
instance  of  deliberate  imposition  found  in  the  history  of  Protestant 
Bible  Translation. 

This  version  passed  through  twenty-nine  editions,  most  of  them 
folios  and  quartos  for  public  religious  service,  during  the  reign  of 
Elizabeth  ;  and  it  continued  to  hold  its  place  in  King  James'  reign, 
while  his  revision  was  in  preparation.  A  few  small-sized  editions 
were  printed  for  use  in  families  ;  but  it  never  became  a  popular  favor- 
ite. The  last  edition  appeared  in  1608  ;  and  three  years  after,  it  was 
superseded,  as  the  Bible  of  Churches,  by  the  Common  Version. 


CHAPTER    XXVIII. 

THE    RHEMISH,    OR    DOUAY  BIBLE. 

The  year  1582  witnessed  a  phenomenon  in  the  history  of  English 
Bible  translation  ;  viz.,  a  version  of  the  New  Testament  emanating 
from  the  Romish  Church.  This  was  not,  however,  the  result  of  any 
change  of  principle  in  that  venerable  institution  in  regard  to  vernacu- 
lar translation  and  the  use  of  the  Bible  among  the  laity  ;  but  merely 
a  change  of  policy  suited  to  the  exigencies  of  the  time.  The  work 
was  executed  by  several  English  Catholics,  all  of  whom  had  once  been 
connected  with  the  University  of  Oxford,  but  who,  on  Elizabeth's 
accession,  had  fled  to  the  continent  and  found  refuge  in  the  Romish 
seminaries  of  Douay  and  Rheims.  In  their  preface  they  explicitly 
declare  : 

"  That  they  do  not  publish  it  upon  an  erroneous  opinion  of  its  being  necessary 
that  the  Holy  Scriptures  should  always  be  in  our  mother-tongue,  or  that  they 
ought  to  be  read  indifferently  of  all,  or  could  be  easily  understood  of  every  one 
that  reads  or  hears  them  in  a  known  language  ;  or  that  they  generally  or  abso- 
lutely judged  it  more  convenient  in  itself  or  more  agreeable  to  God's  word  and 
honor,  or  the  edification  of  the  faithful,  to  have  them  turned  into  vulgar  tongues, 
than  to  be  kept  and  studied  only  in  the  ecclesiastical  languages.  But  they  trans- 
lated this  sacred  book  upon  special  consideration  of  the  present  time,  state  and 
condition  of  their  country,  unto  which  divers  things  were  either  necessary  or 
profitable  and  medicinable  now,  that  otherwise,  in  the  peace  of  the  Church,  were 
neither  much  requisite,  nor  perchance,  wholly  tolerable." 

With  regretful  fondness,  they  look  back  to  the  happy  days  of  the 
primitive  Church,  when,  as  they  maintain,  "  it  was  not  permitted  even 
to  those  who  understood  the  learned  languages  wherein  the  Scriptures 
were  written,  to  read,  reason,  dispute,  turn  and  toss  the  Scriptures  ; 
nor  might  every  schoolmaster  that  had  a  little  Greek  and  Latin 
straight  take  in  hand  the  Holy  Testament  ;  nor  were  the  translated 
Bibles  put  into  the  hands  of  every  husbandman,  artificer,  prentice, 
boys,  girls,  mistress,  maid  and  man."  In  those  good  times,  the  Bible 
was  kept  "  in  libraries,  monasteries,  colleges,  churches,  in  bishops', 
priests',  and  some  other  devout  principal  laymen's  houses  and  hands  ; 
and  the  poor  ploughmen,  while  tilling  the  ground,  could  sing  the 
hymns  and  psalms  either  in  known  or  unknown  tongues,  as  they  heard 


23O  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

them  in  hoi}-  church,  though  they  could  neither  read,  nor  knew  the 
sense,  meaning  and  mysteries  of  the  same." 

It  cannot  be  claimed  that  the  Rhemish  and  Douay  translators  rep- 
resent, in  this  respect,  merely  the  "  obscurantists"  of  the  Romish 
Church.  The  most  distinguished  members  of  her  communion,  illus- 
trious by  their  own  scholarship  and  by  their  zealous  promotion  of 
learning  among  the  clergy,  have  spoken  the  same  language  in  every 
age.  We  have  already  remarked  this  in  regard  to  Cardinal  Wolsey 
and  Sir  Thomas  More.  An  equally  striking  instance  is  furnished  by 
the  policy  of  Cardinal  Ximenes,  after  the  conquest  and  "  conversion" 
of  Granada.  Talavera,  the  benevolent  bishop  of  the  subjugated 
province,  had  much  at  heart  the  completion  of  a  translation  of  the 
Scriptures  into  the  vulgar  Arabic  for  circulation  among  the  Moorish 
converts.  This  purpose  was  sternly  overruled  by  his  superior.  "  It 
would  be  throwing  pearls  before  swine,"  said  Ximenes  in  reply  to 
Talavera's  arguments,  "  to  open  the  Scriptures  to  persons  in  their 
low  state  of  ignorance,  who  could  not  fail,  as  St.  Paul  says,  to  wrest 
them  to  their  own  destruction.  The  word  of  God  should  be  wrapped 
in  discreet  mystery  from  the  vulgar,  who  feel  little  reverence  for  what 
is  plain  and  obvious.  It  was  for  this  reason  that  our  Saviour  himself 
clothed  his  doctrines  in  parables,  when  he  addressed  the  people.  The 
Scriptures  should  be  confined  to  the  three  ancient  languages,  which 
God,  with  mystic  import,  permitted  to  be  inscribed  over  the  head  of 
his  crucified  Son  ;  and  the  vernacular  should  be  reserved  for  such  de- 
votional and  moral  treatises  as  holy  men  indite,  in  order  to  quicken  the 
soul  and  turn  it  from  the  pursuit  of  worldly  vanities  to  heavenly  con- 
templation."* 

And  this  was  the  man  who  founded  and  endowed  the  University  of 
Aicala,  for  the  education  of  the  Spanish  clergy  ;  who  projected  that 
splendid  monument  of  sacred  learning,  the  Complutensian  Polyglott, 
and  defrayed  the  enormous  expenses  of  the  undertaking  out  of  his 
own  income  !  The  aim  in  these  and  similar  labors  in  the  Romish 
Church  was  to  increase  and  consolidate  the  power  of  the  priesthood 
by  raising  it  to  an  unapproachable  height  above  the  laity. 

In  what  then  consisted  the  necessity  for  so  striking  a  deviation  from 
the  immemorial  policy  of  the  Church,  as  the  publication  of  the  New 
Testament  for  general  distribution  in  the  vulgar  tongue  ?  This  the 
translators  explain  with  equal  frankness.  It  was  the  spreading  poison 
of  Protestant  versions  ;  wherein,  as  they  affirm,  God's  law  and 
testament  and  Christ's  written  will  and  word  are  corrupted  both  in  let- 

*  Prescott's  History  of  Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  ch.  vi.,  last  p.  Note  ;  and 
Ilefele,  Der  Cardinal  Ximenes,  S.  63. 


THE   RHEMISH,    OR   DOUAY    BIBLE.  23 1 

ter  and  sense,  in  order  to  make  them  agree  with  the  false  doctrines  of 
their  new  religion.     They  say  : 

"  In  pure  compassion,  therefore,  to  see  their  beloved  countrymen  with  ex- 
treme danger  of  their  souls,  to  use  only  such  profane  translations  and  erroneous 
men's  mere  fancies,  and  being  also  much  moved  thereto  by  the  desires  of  many 
devout  persons,  they  had  set  forth  the  New  Testament  trusting  that  it  might  give 
occasion  to  them,  after  diligently  perusing  it,  to  lay  away  at  least  such  their  im- 
pure versions  as  hitherto  they  had  been  forced  to  use.  .  .  .  They  had  also 
set  forth  reasonable  large  annotations,  thereby  to  shew  the  studious  reader,  in 
most  places  pertaining  to  the  controversies  of  the  time,  both  the  heretical  corrup- 
tions and  false  deductions,  and  also  the  apostolic  tradition,  the  expositions  of  the 
holy  fathers,  the  decrees  of  the  Catholic  Church  and  most  ancient  councils." 

Thirty  years  after,  1609-10  the  version  was  completed  by  the  pub- 
lication at  Douay  of  the  Old  Testament,  which  had  all  this  time  been 
delayed  by  the  want  of  the  necessary  pecuniary  means — no  very  flat- 
tering index  of  the  zeal  of  the  infallible  Church  for  the  diffusion  of  the 
Scriptures. 

The  principles  observed  in  the  preparation  of  their  work  were 
worthy  of  the  motives  from  which  it  was  undertaken.  It  was  made 
from  the  Latin  Vulgate,  in  preference  to  the  Greek  and  Hebrew  Scrip- 
tures. 'The  Latin,"  they  said,  "was  most  ancient;  it  was  cor- 
rected by  St.  Jerome,  commended  by  St.  Augustine,  and  used  and 
expounded  by  the  Fathers  ;  the  holy  council  of  Trent  had  declared  it 
to  be  authentical  ;  it  was  the  gravest,  sincerest,  of  greatest  majesty, 
and  the  least  partiality  ;  and  in  regard  to  the  New  Testament,  was 
exact  and  precise  according  to  the  Greek  ;  preferred  by  Beza  himself 
to  all  other  translations,  and  was  truer  than  the  vulgar  Greek  text 
itself."  This  last  claim,  which  might  have  been  made  with  more  rea- 
son in  reference  to  the  original  text  of  the  Vulgate  (whose  date 
was  much  older  than  the  Greek  manuscripts  then  in  the  possession 
of  Protestant  scholars),  was  made  for  modern  copies  of  it,  which 
embodied  the  mistakes  and  corruptions  of  its  successive  transcribers 
through  more  than  a  thousand  years.  Many  attempts  had  been  made  for 
its  restoration,  but  with  confessedly  little  success.  Such  was  the  text  to 
which  the  Rhemish  and  Douay  translators  appealed  as  the  infallible 
representative  of  the  inspired  word. 

Another  characteristic  feature  of  the  work  was  the  transfer  of  a 
multitude  of  words  and  phrases,  untranslated,  which  by  long  usage 
had  acquired  a  specific  application  to  the  doctrines,  ceremonies,  and 
discipline  of  the  Romish  Church.  These,  in  their  own  words,  "  they 
kept  exactly,  as  catholic  terms."  Many  others  also  were  retained, 
apparently   for  the   purpose   of   throwing   an    air  of   mystery  over  the 


232  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

Scriptures,  as  too  profound  and  sacred  to  be  understood  by  the  com- 
mon reader. 

No  more  convincing  evidence  could  be  asked  of  the  triumph  of  the 
great  principle  of  Protestantism  in  England  than  the  version  thus 
forced  from  the  reluctant  hand  of  the  Romish  Church.  It  was  not  till 
an  overwhelming  public  opinion  demanded  the  free  use  of  the  Scriptures 
as  the  right  of  every  individual,  without  respect  to  class  or  condition  ; 
not  till  the  sacred  word  was,  as  these  translators  conceded,  in  every 
man's  hands  in  England,  did  she  step  forward,  and  with  this  version 
seek  to  tempt  them  from  the  more  perfect  Protestant  translations. 

The  subsequent  history  of  the  Douay  Bible  is  in  full  keeping  with 
its  origin.  Were  even  so  imperfect  a  version  freely  circulated  among 
the  Catholic  masses  speaking  the  English  tongue,  there  would  soon  be 
witnessed  among  them  the  evidences  of  a  new  intellectual  and  reli- 
gious life.  But  its  office  has  ever  been,  and  so  continues  in  the  pre- 
sent day,  to  stand  as  a  barrier  between  them  and  the  dreaded  Protes- 
tant versions  ;  while  between  them  and  itself  is  interposed  the  general 
influence  of  the  priesthood,  and  the  secret  inquisition  of  the  confes- 
sional. 


CHAPTER    XXIX. 

THE    COMMON    VERSION. 

The  four  or  five  years  preceding  the  death  of  Elizabeth  had  wit- 
nessed a  partial  lull  in  the  great  contest  between  the  Establishment 
and  the  Puritans.  This  was  the  effect  of  several  causes,  none  of 
which  however,  contained  the  presage  of  permanent  peace.  The 
Queen,  now  yielding  to  the  infirmities  of  age,  could  no  longer  main- 
tain her  prerogative  over  Church  and  State  with  the  spirit  and 
efficiency  of  former  days.  Archbishop  Whitgift  also,  who  had  pro- 
claimed "  war  to  the  knife"  with  nonconformists,  on  his  elevation  to 
the  Primacy  in  1583  and  whose  administration  made  that  of  Parker 
seem  moderate  and  humane,  was  beginning  to  feel  the  weight  of 
years.  Meanwhile,  the  unwise  and  illegal  severity  of  their  measures 
had  produced  a  corresponding  reaction  in  public  sentiment,  which 
now  affected  all  classes  of  society.  It  was  no  longer  mere  popular 
sympathy  with  the  persecuted.  The  most  thoughtful  and  far-sighted 
statesmen  beheld  with  alarm  the  encroachments  of  a  priesthood  who, 
through  their  vast,  undefined,  ecclesiastical  powers,  and  their  coalition 
with  the  Star  Chamber,  had  almost  monopolized  the  administration  of 
justice,  and  left  to  British  subjects  little  more  of  liberty  than  the  name. 
The  courts  of  common  law,  provoked  to  resistance  by  long  aggres- 
sions on  their  jurisdiction,  now  learned  to  check  the  action  of  the  epis- 
copal courts  and  of  the  High  Commission  by  writs  of  prohibition, 
which  could  only  be  set  aside  by  a  tedious  legal  process,  sometimes 
protracted  through  several  years.  This  invasion  of  their  prescriptive 
rights  was  hotly  resented  by  the  bishops  ;  but  in  spite  of  their  best 
endeavors,  "  the  evil,"  says  Strype,  "  increased  more  and  more."* 
Thus,  in  various  ways,  was  the  hierarchy  crippled  for  the  time,  and 
disabled  from  that  unrestrained  use  of  its  weapons  to  which  it  had 
been  so  long  accustomed. 

But  that  which  contributed  most  of  all  to  this  state  of  comparative 
quiet,  was  the  near  prospect  of  a  Puritan  sovereign  on  the  throne  of 
England.  James  VI.  of  Scotland,  Elizabeth's  expected  heir,  had 
been  educated  a  Presbyterian.  He  had  publicly  subscribed  with  his 
own  hand  the  Solemn  League  and  Covenant,!  and  on  several  occa- 

*  Life  of  Whitgift,  Book  IV.  ch.  xxvi.  f  Neal,  Part  I.  ch.  viii. 


234  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

sions  had  reaffirmed  his  attachment  to  its  principles.  A  marked  in-  ' 
stance  of  the  kind  had  been  witnessed  in  the  General  Assembly  at 
Edinburgh,  in  T590  ;*  "  when,  standing  with  his  bonnet  off  and  his 
hands  lifted  up  to  heaven,  '  he  praised  God  that  he  was  born  in  the 
time  of  the  light  of  the  Gospel,  and  in  such  a  place  as  to  be  king  of 
such  a  Church,  the  sincerest  [purest]  kirk  in  the  world.  The  Ghurch 
of  Geneva,'  said  he,  '  keep  Pasche  and  Yule  ;  what  have  they  for  them  ? 
They  have  no  institution.  As  for  our  neighbor  kirk  of  England, 
their  service  is  an  evil-said  Mass  in  English  ;  they  want  nothing  of  the 
Mass  but  the  liftings.  I  charge  you,  my  good  ministers,  doctors, 
elders,  nobles,  gentlemen,  and  barons,  to  stand  by  your  purity,  and 
to  exhort  the  people  to  do  the  same  ;  and  I,  forsooth,  as  long  as  I 
brook  my  life,  shall  maintain  the  same.' 

While  therefore  the  Puritans,  secure,  as  they  supposed,  of  a  speedy 
change  in  the  government  which  would  make  them  the  administration 
party,  were  content  silently  to  "  bide  their  time,"  the  bishops,  dread- 
ing the  reckoning  which  was  to  come,  were  quite  willing  to  abstain 
from  acts  which  might  make  a  case,  now  sufficiently  bad,  quite  irre- 
trievable. "For  indeed,"  says  Strype,  "he  [the  Archbishop]  and 
some  of  the  bishops,  particularly  the  Bishop  of  London, f  feared  much 
that  when  this  king  came  to  reign  in.  this  realm,  he  would  favor  the 
New  Discipline,  and  make  alterations  in  the  ecclesiastical  government 
and  liturgy.  "\  The  hopes  of  the  one  party  and  the  fears  of  the  other, 
both  of  which  seemed  so  justly  founded,  were  destined  to  a  signal  dis- 
appointment. 

In  1603,  the  long  career  of  the  great  Queen  was  closed  by  death, 
and  the  Scotch  King  succeeded  to  the  English  throne,  under  the  title 
of  James  I.  All  eyes  were  now  turned  to  the  new  monarch  ;  and  his 
first  movements  were  awaited  by  both  parties  with  breathless  interest. 
Messengers  were  promptly  dispatched  by  both  into  Scotland  to  offer 
their  congratulations  and  assurances  of  loyalty,  and  to  bespeak  the 
royal  favor  to  their  respective  interests.     His  reply  to  the  Bishops, 

*  Neal,  Part  II.  ch.  i. 

f  Richard  Bancroft,  who  had  been  iaised,  in  1597,  by  the  strenuous  efforts  of 
Whitgift,  to  the  bishopric  of  London,  owed  the  favor  of  that  prelate  to  his  long 
and  active  opposition  to  the  Puritans.  For  many  years  previous  he  had  been 
the  Primate's  right  hand  man  in  all  measures  for  the  suppression  of  that  obnox- 
ious party,  and  even  surpassed  him  in  the  violence  and  cruelty  of  his  proceed- 
ings. Since  his  elevation  to  the  see  of  London,  Whitgift's  increasing  age  had 
thrown  on  Bancroft  the  active  duties  of  the  Primacy,  and  placed  him  foremost  in 
the  conflict.  He  had,  therefore,  more  than  any  other  man,  reason  to  dread  the 
expected  new  order  of  things. 

I  Life  of  Whitgift,  p.  500. 


THE    COMMON    VERSION.  235 

that  he  would  uphold  the  government  of  the  late  Queen  as  she  left  it, 
somewhat  revived  their  courage.  But  he  was  also  gracious  to  the 
agents  of  the  Puritans.  And  thus,  while  he  refrained  from  commit- 
ting himself  to  any  definite  policy,  each  party  was  flattered  with  the 
idea  of  standing  highest  in  his  favor.  Unsuspected  by  both,  James 
had  an  object  in  view  to  which  the  settlement  of  the  quarrel  between 
the  Prelates  and  the  Puritans,  in  itself  considered,  was  to  him  a  mere 
trifle.  Provided  only  his  Prerogative  were  secured  by  the  decision,  he 
cared  not  which  triumphed  ;  and  to  form  a  judgment  on  this  point 
required  time  for  personal  observation.  During  several  months  suc- 
ceeding his  accession,  he  was  engaged  in  a  royal  progress  through  his 
new  dominions  ;  and  though  apparently  absorbed  in  amusement,  he 
diligently  used  the  opportunity  for  watching  the  character  and  tenden- 
cies of  the  rival  parties.  Meanwhile,  the  war  of  opinion  had  broken 
out  with  renewed  violence  ;  and  the  measures  and  publications,  pro- 
ceeding from  both  sides,  developed  still  more  palpably  their  charac- 
teristic views  and  aims. 

James  was  at  length  ready  to  take  a  definitive  position.  On  the 
24th  of  October,  a  proclamation,  issued  under  the  royal  seal,  ap- 
pointed a  meeting  of  leading  Churchmen  and  Puritans  for  discussing 
the  ecclesiastical  affairs  of  the  kingdom.  Thus  originated  the  cele- 
brated Hampton  Court  Conference. 

The  terms  of  the  proclamation  left  no  room  to  doubt  of  his  Maj- 
esty's decision  to  support  the  Established  Church  ;  while  the  insulting 
arrogance  of  his  tone  toward  the  Puritans,  his  prohibition  to  them  of 
all  freedom  of  speech  or  of  the  press,  and  even  of  the  right  to  join 
together  in  petitioning  their  sovereign  on  points  of  vital  interest, 
taught  them  what  treatment  to  expect  in  the  appointed  interview. 
The  arrangements  for  the  meeting  corresponded  to  the  style  of  the 
proclamation.  Sixteen  dignitaries  of  the  Church,  of  whom  nine 
were  bishops,  were  designated  to  represent  the  prelatical  party  ;  while 
only  four  Puritan  ministers,  and  those  selected  by  the  King,  were 
allowed  to  appear  on  the  other  side. 

On  Saturday,  the  14th  of  January,  1604,  the  Conference  held  its 
first  session.  To  this  the  Puritan  ministers  were  not  admitted.  In 
Dr.  Barlow's  account  of  the  Conference,  drawn  up  by  order  of  the 
Archbishop,*  the  occurrences  of  the  first  morning  are  stated  as  fol- 

*  "  The  sum  and  substance  of  the  Conference  which  it  pleased  his  excellent 
Majesty  to  have  with  the  Lords  Bishops  and  other  of  his  clergy  (whereat  the 
most  of  the  Lords  of  the  council  were  present)  in  his  Majesty's  Privy  Chamber 
at  Hampton  Court,  Jan.  14th,  1603  [4].  Contracted  by  William  Barlow,  Doctor 
of  Divinity,  and  Dean  of  Chester;"  301  pp.  small  octavo.     It  is  of  this  document 


236  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

lows.  "  All  the  deans  and  doctors  attending  my  Lords  the  Bishops 
into  the  presence  chamber,  there  we  found  sitting  upon  a  form,  Dr. 
Reynolds,  Dr.  Sparkes,  Mr.  Knewstubbs,  and  Mr.  Chaderton,  agents 
for  the  Millene  Plaintiffs.'"  The  bishops  entering  the  Privy  Cham- 
ber, stayed  there  till  commandment  came  from  his  Majesty  that  none 
of  any  sort  should  be  present  but  only  the  Lords  of  the  Privy  Coun- 
cil, and  the  bishops  with  five  deans  [naming  them],  who  being  called 
in,  the  door  was  close  shut  by  my  Lord  Chamberlain." 

The  indignity  thus  put  upon  the  reform  party  was  followed  by  a 
meeting  of  the  King  and  the  bishops,  in  which  they  came  to  a  perfect 
mutual  understanding.  It  was  opened  by  the  King  in  an  oration  an 
hour  long,  whose  key  note  was  the  sentiment  expressed  in  the  first 
sentence,  that  "  Religion  is  the  soul  of  a  kingdom,  and  Unity  the  life 
of  religion."  It  contained  very  severe  reflections  on  that  portion  of 
the  clergy  who,  by  opposing  conformity  to  the  established  doctrine 
and  discipline,  had  bred  dissensions  now  amounting  almost  to  a 
schism,  "  a  point,"  says  the  royal  orator,  "  most  perilous  to  the  com- 
mon weal  as  to  the  Church."  They  then  proceeded  to  a  consideration 
of  the  complaints  against  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer,  as  well  as  of 
alleged  abuses  in  the  administration  of  the  service  and  discipline  of 
the  Church  ;  which  ended  in  an  order  from  the  King  for  a  few  verbal 
alterations  in  the  titles  of  certain  portions  of  the  Prayer  Book,  "  not," 
as  he  remarked,  "  in  the  body  of  the  sense,  and  by  way  rather  oi 
some  explanation  than  of  any  alteration  at  all. "J     His  Majesty  did 

that  Strype  says  in  his  Life  of  Whitgift,  p.  571  :  "  But  that  the  very  truth  might 
appear  [of  the  occurrences  in  the  Hampton  Court  Conference],  there  was  an 
authentic  relation  of  it,  written  by  one  of  the  divines  there  present,  viz..  Barlow, 
Dean  of  Chester  ;  and  that  by  the  Archbishop's  own  order,  imposing  this  work 
upon  him.  Which  then  we  may  conclude  to  have  been  carefully  revised  by  him- 
self. And  that  it  might  be  more  exact  and  complete,  it  was  compared  and  en- 
larged by  the  writer  (before  it  was  published),  with  the  Notes  and  copies  of  the 
Bishop  of  London,  the  Deans  of  Christ's  Church,  Winchester  and  Windsor,  and 
the  Archdeacon  of  Nottingham." 

The  quotations  from  this  tract,  which  has  now  become  rare,  have  been  made  for 
the  present  work  from  the  copy  in  the  Harvard  University  Library.  It  has  been 
accused  of  unfairness  in  representing  the  conduct  of  the  Puritan  divines  at  the 
Conference  ;  its  source  leaves  no  room  to  suspect  that  James  and  the  prelates  are 
not  presented  in  the  most  favorable  light. 

*  In  allusion  to  the  so-called  Millenary  petition,  signed  by  756  Puritan  minis- 
ters, and  presented  to  the  King  soon  after  his  arrival  in  England,  praying  for  a 
reformation  in  the  Church. 

f  Strype's  Life  of  Whitgift,  Appendix  No.  XLV  :  Lettet  from  the  Bishop  of 
Durham  to  the  Archbishop  of  York,  giving  an  account  of  the  Hampton  Court  Con- 
ference. 


THE   COMMON   VERSION.  237 

not  allow  the  session  to  close  without  assuring  the  bishops  that 
"  howsoever  he  lived  among  Puritans,  and  was  kept  for  the  most  part 
as  a  ward  under  them  ;  yet,  since  he  was  of  the  age  of  his  son,  ten 
years  old,  he  ever  disliked  their  opinions.  As  the  Saviour  of  the 
world  said,  '  Though  he  lived  among  them,  he  was  not  of  them.'  "* 

On  Monday,  the  second  day  of  the  Conference,  the  Puritan  minis- 
ters were  called  into  the  council  chamber  (the  Bishops  of  London 
and  Winchester  being  there  already),  and  after  them  all  the  deans 
and  doctors  present  which  had  been  summoned.  On  this  occasion, 
in  the  words  of  the  Bishop  of  Durham,!  his  highness  used  more  short 
and  round  speech."  For  five  hours  these  learned  and  virtuous  men 
(one  of  them,  Dr.  Reynolds,  a  distinguished  Professor  in  the  Uni- 
versity of  Oxford),  were  obliged  to  submit  to  a  brow-beating  from  the 
king  and  prelates,  which  reflects  deep  disgrace  on  the  cause  that 
could  need  or  use  such  weapons. 

Mr.  Knewstubbs  having  taken  exceptions  to  the  cross  in  baptism, 
on  account  of  the  offence  to  weak  brethren,  the  King  replied  :J 
"How  long  will  such  brethren  be  weak?  Are  not  forty-five  years 
sufficient  for  them  to  grow  strong  in  ?  Besides,  who  pretends  this 
weakness  ?  We  require  not  subscription  of  laics  and  idiots,  but  of 
preachers  and  ministers,  who  are  not  still,  I  trow,  to  be  fed  with 
milk,  being  enabled  to  feed  ethers.  Some  of  them  are  strong  enough, 
if  not  headstrong  ;  conceiving  themselves  able  to  teach  who  last  spake 
for  them,  and  all  the  bishops  in  the  land." 

To  the  further  inquiry  of  Mr.  Knewstubbs,  whether  the  Church 
were  competent  thus  to  add  to  the  ordinance  of  Christ,  and  how  far 
her  authority  is  binding  in  such  cases,  his  Majesty  answered  with 
great  warmth  :  "  I  will  not  argue  that  point  with  you,  but  answer  as 
kings  in  parliament,  Le  roi  s'  avisera.  This  is  like  Mr.  John  Black,  a 
beardless  boy,  who  told  me  the  last  Conference  in  Scotland  that  he 
would  hold  conformity  with  his  Majesty  in  matters  of  doctrine,  but 
every  man  for  ceremonies  was  to  be  left  to  his  own  liberty.  But  I 
will  have  none  of  that.  I  will  have  one  doctrine  and  one  discipline, 
one  religion  in  substance  and  in  ceremony.  And,  therefore,  I  charge 
you  never  speak  more  to  that  point,  how  much  you  are  bound  to 
obey,  when  the  Church  hath  ordained  it."§ 

Dr.  Reynolds  objected  to  the  apocryphal  books,  instancing,  among 
other  errors,  Ecclesiasticus  xlviii.,  10.  On  this  his  Majesty  saidj  "  with 
a  pleasant  apostrophe  to  the  Lords  :  What,  trow  ye,  makes  these  men 

*  Barlow's  account  of  the  first  session  of  the  Conference,  closing  paragraph. 
\  Letter,  &c,  as  just  quoted.  \  Fuller,  Ch.  Hist.  vol.  iii.,  p.  186. 

§  Barlow,  p.  70.  1  Barlow,  p.  62. 


238  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

so  angry  with  Ecclesiasticus  ?     By  my  soul  I  think  he  was  a  bishop,  or 
else  they  would  never  use  him  so  !" 

Upon  a  proposition  by  Dr.  Reynolds  that  the  inferior  country 
clergy  might  be  permitted  to  meet  together  at  stated  times  for  the  dis- 
cussion of  theological  subjects,*  James  broke  forth  :  "  If  you  aim  at  a 
Scottish  Presbytery,  it  agreeth  as  well  with  monarchy  as  God  and  the 
devil.  Then  Jack,  and  Tom,  and  Will,  and  Dick,  shall  meet  and 
censure  me  and  my  council.  Therefore,  I  say  again,  Le  roi  s'avi- 
sera.  Stay,  1  pray  you,  one  seven  years,  and  then  if  you  find  me 
grow  pursy  and  fat,  I  may  perchance  hearken  unto  you  :  for  that  gov- 
ernment will  keep  me  in  breath  and  give  me  work  enough."  He  then 
put  the  question  to  Dr.  Reynolds,  whether  he  knew  of  any  "  who  liked 
the  present  government  ecclesiastical  and  disliked  his  supremacy  ?  On  his 
answering  that  he  knew  of  none  such,  the  King  proceeded  to  relate 
his  own  and  his  mother's  experience  with  the  Scotch  reformers,  who 
cried  up  the  supremacy  of  the  monarch  till  the  Popish  bishops  were 
put  down,  and  then,  "being  illuminated  with  more  light,"  as  they 
professed,  took  in  hand  the  supremacy  also,  f  Then  touching  his  hat 
to  the  bishops,  he  added  :j  "  My  Lords  the  Bishops,  I  may  thank 
you  that  these  men  do  thus  plead  for  my  supremacy.  They  think 
they  cannot  make  their  party  good  against  you  but  by  appealing  unto 
it,  as  if  you,  or  some  that  adhere  unto  you,  were  not  well  affected 
toward  it.  But  if  once  you  were  out  and  they  in  place,  I  know  what 
would  become  of  my  supremacy.  No  Bishop,  no  King,  as  I  before 
said.  Neither  do  I  thus  speak  at  random,  without  ground  ;  for  I 
have  observed  since  my  coming  into  England  that  some  preachers  be- 
fore me  can  be  content  to  pray  for  James,  King  of  England,  Scot- 
land, France  and  Ireland,  Defender  of  the  Faith  ;  but  as  for  Supreme 
Governor  in  all  cases  and  over  all  persons  (as  well  ecclesiastical  as 
civil),  they  pass  that  over  with  silence  ;  and  what  cut  they  have  been 
of  I  after  learned."  Then  having  asked  if  they  had  anything  more  to 
say,    and  being   answered   in   the  negative,  the   King  rose   from  his 

*  Similar  exercises  under  the  name  of  prophesy ings  had  been  established  by 
Grindal  when  Bishop  of  London,  with  a  view  to  promote  among  the  clergy  of 
his  diocese  the  spirit  of  preaching,  which  had  almost  died  out  in  the  Church. 
They  were  peremptorily  snppressed  by  Elizabeth  as  savoring  too  much  of  the 
New  Discipline,  and  Grindal's  revival  of  them,  as  Archbistiop,  cost  him  the  for- 
feiture of  the  royal  favor,  suspension  from  his  office  and  banishment  from  Court, 
which  harsh  treatment  broke  the  old  man's  heart.  Freedom  of  thought  was  dis- 
couraged, no  less  among  the  inferior  clergy  than  among  the  laity. — See  Strype's 
Life  of  Archb.  Grindal,  Append.  No.  X.  "  The  Queen  to  the  Bishops  throughout 
England  for  the  suppression  of  the  exercise  called  Prophesying,  &*C." 

f  Fuller,  vol.  iii.,  p.  188.  J  Barlow,  p.  S2. 


THE    COMMON   VERSION.  239 

chair,  saying  as  he  passed  to  his  inner  chamber  :*  "If  this  be  all 
they  have  to  say,  I  will  make  them  conform  themselves,  or  I  will 
harry  them  out  of  the  land,  or  else  do  worse." 

On  the  third  and  last  day  of  the  Conference,  Wednesday,  January 
18,  the  Archbishop  and  other  church  dignitaries  were  present, 
together  with  many  knights,  civilians  and  doctors  of  the  law.  But 
the  Puritan  ministers  were  not  admitted  to  any  share  in  the  discus- 
sion, being  merely  called  in  at  the  close  of  the  meeting,  to  hear  what 
had  been  decided.  At  this  session  the  abuses  of  the  High  Commis- 
sion were  the  chief  subject  of  consideration.  One  of  the  Lords 
present  affirmed  that  the  proceedings  in  that  court  were  like  the  Span- 
ish Inquisition  ;  where  men  are  urged  to  subscribe  more  than  the  law 
requireth  ;  and  by  the  oath  ex  officio,  forced  to  accuse  themselves, 
being  examined  upon  twenty  or  twenty-four  articles  on  a  sudden 
without  deliberation,  and  for  the  most  part  against  themselves."  But 
the  King  defended  the  practice  in  a  long  speech,  so  entirely  satisfac- 
tory to  the  prelates  that  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  in  a  rapture 
of  admiration  exclaimed  :  '  Undoubtedly  your  Majesty  speaks  by  the 
special  assistance  of  God's  spirit  !"  To  this  Bancroft,  the  Bishop  of 
London,  added,  kneeling  :  I  protest,  my  heart  melteth  with  joy  that 
Almighty  God,  of  his  singular  mercy,  hath  given  us  such  a  King  as 
since  Christ's  time,  the  like  has  not  been  !"f 

This  question  and  others  proposed  to  the  Conference  having  been 
settled,  the  four  Puritan  preachers  were  called  in  to  hear  the  trifling 
alterations  proposed  to  be  made  in  the  Liturgy.  They  ventured  to 
beg  for  some  little  leniency  and  forbearance  toward  certain  godly 
ministers  in  Lancashire,  whose  conscience  did  not  allow  them  to  con- 
form in  all  particulars  to  the  Church.  To  this  application  the  King 
at  first  answered  that  it  was  not  his  intention,  and  he  presumed  it  was 
not  the  bishops',  presently  and  out  of  hand  to  enforce  these  things 
without  fatherly  admonitions,  conferences,  and  persuasions"  ;  that 
he  wished  there  might  be  inquiry  made  whether  these  ministers  had 
converted  any  from  popery,  and  were,  withal,  of  blameless  characters  ; 
and  if  so,  that  the  Lord  Archbishop  would  write  letters  directing 
some  favor  to  be  shown  them."  But  Bancroft  promptly  interposed 
with  the  suggestion  that  if  such  letters  were  granted,  copies  of  them 
would  fly  all  over  England  ;  and  then  all  nonconformists  would  beg 
for  the  same  indulgence,  and  so  no  fruit  would  follow  from  the  Con- 
ference, but  things  be  worse  than  before.  He  desired,  therefore,  that 
a  time  might  be  limited  within  which  they  should  be  required  to  con- 

*  Barlow,  p.  83.  f  Fuller,  Ch.  Hist.,  vol.  iii.,  p.  190. 


240  ENGLISH    BIBLE    TRANSLATION. 

form.  To  this  his  Majesty  assented,  and  suggested  that  each  bishop 
should  see  that  it  was  done  within  his  own  diocese.  At  this  point 
Mr.  Knewstubbs,  falling  on  his  knees,  prayed  for  the  like  forbearance 
to  some  honest  ministers  in  Suffolk.  But  the  King  had  now  got  his 
cue,  and  interrupting  the  Archbishop  who  was  about  to  speak,  he 
proceeded  :  "'  Let  me  alone  to  answer  him.  Sir,  you  show  yourself  an 
uncharitable  man.  We  have  here  taken  pains,  and  in  the  end,  have 
concluded  on  unity  and  uniformity  ;  and  you,  forsooth,  must  prefer 
the  credit  of  a  few  private  men  before  the  peace  of  the  Church. 
This  is  just  the  Scotch  argument  when  anything  was  concluded  which 
disliked  some  humors.  Let  them  conform  themselves  shortly,  or  they 
shall  hear  of  it."* 

After  a  few  more  words  the  King,  rising,  dismissed  the  Conference. 
As  he  was  leaving  the  council  chamber  the  Bishop  of  London  fol- 
lowed him  with  the  benediction  :  "  God's  goodness  be  blessed  for  your 
Majesty,  and  give  health  and  prosperity  to  your  Highness,  your  gra- 
cious Queen,  the  young  Prince,  and  all  the  royal  issue  !" 

Thus  closed  the  Conference  of  Hampton  Court.  On  the  day  fol- 
lowing, the  royal  Moderator  thus  described  it  in  a  letter  to  a  confi- 
dential friend  in  Scotland,  whom  he  addresses  as  "  My  honest 
Blake  !"f 

"  We  have  kept  such  a  revel  with  the  Puritans  here  these  two  days  as  was 
never  heard  the  like  ;  where  J  have  peppered  them  as  soundly  as  ye  have  done 
the  papists  there.  It  were  no  reason  that  those  that  will  refuse  the  airy  sign  of 
the  cross  after  baptism,  should  have  their  purses  stuffed  with  any  more  solid  and 
substantial  crosses.:):  They  fled  me  so  from  argument  to  argument,  without  ever 
answering  me  directly,  ut  est  eorum  moris,  as  I  was  forced  at  last  to  say  unto 
them  :  That  if  any  of  them  had  been  in  a  college  disputing  with  their  scholars, 
if  any  of  their  disciples  had  answered  them  in  that  sort,  they  would  have  fetched 
him  up,  in  place  of  a  reply  ;  and  so  should  the  rod — [here  the  royal  pleasantry 
descends  below  '  the  dignity  of  history.']  I  have  such  a  book  of  theirs  as  may 
well  convert  infidels  ;  but  it  shall  never  convert  me,  except  by  turning  me  more 
earnestly  against  them. 

And  thus,  praying  you  to  commend  me  to  the  honest  Chamberlain,  I  bid  you 
heartily  farewell.  James  R.m 

There  can  now  be  no  room  for  doubt  respecting  the  prime  object 
and  the  animus  of  this  memorable  convention.  The  establishment  of 
Episcopacy   as  the   form   of  Church   government  most  favorable   to 

*  Fuller,  vol.  iii.,  p.  192. 

f  The  whole  letter,  a  curious  if  not  very  dignified  specimen  of  royal  literature, 
is  contained  in  Strype's  Life  of  Archbishop  Whitgift,  Appendix,  No.  XLVL 
t  Coins  stamped  with  the  sign  of  the  cross. 


THE    COMMON    VERSION.  241 

royal  supremacy,  and  the  extinction  of  Puritanism,  as  tending  in  the 
opposite  direction,  are  written  legibly  in  all  its  proceedings. 

How  then  is  the  fact  to  be  explained  that  in  regard  to  one  point  of 
vital  interest  the  wishes  of  the  Puritan  ministers  received  the  prompt 
concurrence  of  the  King,  and  that  manifestly  against  the  wishes  of 
their  opponents  ;  and  that  the  realization  of  the  measure  thus  inau- 
spicious]}' commended  to  his  notice  became  one  of  the  chief  objects  of 
his  royal  care  for  several  succeeding  years,  and  the  leading  historical 
event  of  his  reign  ?  This  was  the  subject  brought  forward  by  Dr. 
Reynolds,  at  the  second  session  of  the  Conference,  of  a  new  trans- 
lation of  the  Scriptures.  A  careful  attention  to  the  circum- 
stances of  the  case  easily  solves  the  problem. 

This  scene  in  the  Conference  is  thus  described  by  Barlow  :* 

"  After  that,  he  (Dr.  Reynolds,)  moved  his  Majesty  that  there  might  be  a  new 
translation  of  the  Bible  ;  because  those  which  were  allowed  in  the  reigns  of 
Henry  the  Eighth  and  Edward  the  Sixth  were  corrupt  and  not  answerable  to  the 
original.  To  which  motion  there  was  at  the  present  no  gainsaying,  the  objec- 
tions! being  trivial  and  old  and  already  in  print,  often  answered  ;  only  my  Lord 
of  London  well  added,  that  if  every  man's  humor  should  be  followed,  there  would 
be  no  end  of  translating.  Whereupon  his  Highness  wished  that  some  special 
pains  should  be  taken  in  that  behalf,  for  one  uniform  translation,  (professing  that 
he  had  never  yet  seen  a  good  translation  into  English,  but  the  worst  of  all  he 
thought  the  Genevan  to  be),  and  this  to  be  done  by  the  best  learned  in  both 
Universities  ;  after  them  to  be  reviewed  by  the  bishops  and  the  chief  learned  of 
the  Church  ;  from  them  to  be  presented  to  the  Privy  Council  ;  and  lastly  to  be 
ratified  by  his  royal  authority  ;  and  so  this  whole  Church  to  be  bound  unto  it 
and  no  other.  Marry,  withal,  he  gave  this  caveat  (upon  a  word  cast  out  by  my. 
Lord  of  London),  that  no  marginal  notes  should  be  added,  having  found  in  those 
annexed  to  the  Genevan  translation  (which  he  saw  in  a  Bible  given  him  by  an 
English  lady),  some  notes  very  partial,  untrue,  seditions,  and  savoring  too  much 
of  dangerous  and  traitorous  conceits.  As  when  from  Exodus  i.,  19,  disobedience 
to  Kings  is  allowed  in  a  marginal  note  ;  and  2  Chron.  xv. ,  16,  King  Asa  is 
taxed  in  the  note  for  only  deposing  his  mother  and  not  killing  her.  And  so  con- 
cluded this  point,  as  all  the  rest,  with  a  grave  and  judicious  advice — First,  that 
errors  in  matters  of  faith  might  be  rectified  and  amended  ;  Secondly,  that  matters 
indifferent  might  rather  be  interpreted  and  a  gloss  added  ;  alleging  from  Bartolus 
de  regno  that,  as  better  a  King  with  some  weakness  than  still  a  change,  so  rather 
a  Church  with  some  faults  than  an  innovation." 

It  cannot  escape  the  reader  of  this  account  that  Bancroft's  insolent 

*  Sum  and  Substance  of  the  Conference,  &c,  p.  45.  Comp.  Fuller,  Ch.  Hist. 
Vol.  iii. ,  p.  182. 

f  Namely,  to  these  versions,  of  the  reigns  of  Henry  VIII.  and  Edward  VI.  Dr. 
R.  of  course  referred  to  a  version  for  public  use  in  the  Churches.  The  one  still 
in  use  was  Cranmer's  "  authorized  version,"  in  the  unsatisfactory  revision  of  it 
by  the  bishops. 


242  ENGLISH    BIBLE    TRANSLATION. 

remark,  thrust  in  with  characteristic  forwardness  before  the  King  had 
spoken,v  was  a  decided  mistake.  His  Majesty's  answer  is  based  on  a 
view  quite  different  from  that  which  had  governed  the  policy  of  the 
Primate  and  his  Lieutenant,  the  last  twenty  years  ;  while  the  sketch  it 
contains  of  a  specific  plan  for  the  execution  of  the  proposed  work 
looks  much  like  the  result  of  deliberate  consideration  and  a  previously 
settled  purpose.  The  probability  that  such  may  have  been  the  case 
will  appear  from  a  few  facts. 

The  subject  of  an  improved  translation  of  the  Scriptures  was  by  no 
means  a  novel  one.  For  many  years  before  the  death  of  Elizabeth, 
the  question  was  frequently  agitated  of  a  thorough  revision  of  the 
Church  Bible  which  should  bring  it  up  in  critical  accuracy  to  the  de- 
mands of  the  age.  Hugh  Broughton,  the  profoundest  Biblical  scholar 
of  the  time  in  England,  and  probably  excelled  by  none  elsewhere, 
wished  to  devote  his  own  attainments  to  the  task,  and  urged  its  claims 
with  more  enthusiasm  than  prudence  on  the  great  men  both  in  Church 
and  State.  In  1595,  he  published  a  translation  of  a  part  of  the  Old 
Testament,  with  short  explanatory  notes,  as  a  specimen  of  his  pro- 
posed work,  hoping  thereby  to  secure  the  countenance  and  pecuniary 
aid  necessary  to  its  completion.  Of  this  he  sent  a  copy  to  Lord  Bur- 
leigh, with  a  letter  stating  his  plan  and  soliciting  his  lordship  to  be 
"  chief  est  in  contribution  toward  the  charge,  which  would  be  exceed- 
ing great."  In  another  letter  to  the  same  distinguished  person,  he 
mentions  that  "  sundry  Lords,  and  among  them  some  bishops,  and 
others  inferior  of  all  sorts,  had  expressed  the  wish  that  his  long  stud- 
ies in  Hebrew  and  Greek  might  be  bestowed  on  the  improvement  of 
the  Bible's  Translation.  That  they  judged  rightly  that  amended  it 
must  be.  In  what  points,  he  thought  it  not  good  largely  to  tell  in 
words  till  it  were  performed  in  work  ;  lest  the  Bible  then  in  use  be 
brought  into  unnecessary  disgrace  ;  but  that  all  persons  of  knowledge 
and  conscience  would  grant  that  bettered  much  it  might  be."  He 
reminds  the  Lord  Treasurer  that  this  subject  had  been  presented  to 
his  notice  two  years  before  ;  and  that  "  her  Majesty  at  that  time  sent 
word  and  message  to  Sir  Francis  Walsingham  that  it  must  be  consid- 
ered, which  his  Honor  had  intended  to  do,  but  was  hindered  by- 
affairs  of  State."  He  then  proposes  that  six  of  the  most  learned  lin- 
guists, to  be  sustained  by  voluntary  contributions,  be  employed  in 
executing  the  work  ;  whose  object  shall  be,  on  the  one  hand,  not  to 
alter  where  the  translation  is  already  well  done  ;  and  on  the  other,  to 
spare  nothing  that  carried  open  untruth  against  history  and  religion,  or 
darkness,  disannulling  the  writers.  In  which  kind,  Job  and  the 
Prophets  might  be  brought  to  speak  far  better  unto  us." 


THE   COMMON    VERSION. 


243 


But  all  his  hopes  were  frustrated  by  the  opposition  of  Whitgift  and 
Bancroft,  who  disliked  the  man,  and  dreaded  the  inexorable  honesty 
of  his  principles  of  translation.  Their  avowed  objections  to  his  plan 
were  indeed  of  the  most  pious  character,  and  seemed  dictated  by  a 
holy  zeal  for  the  interests  of  truth.  "They  feared,"  says  Strype, 
"  that  hereby  an  occasion  might  be  given  to  the  enemies  of  our  reli- 
gion, the  Papists,  of  discrediting  our  common  English  Bible  and  the 
doctrines  that  were  founded  on  it,  and  weaken  the  reputation  of  that 
former  translation  then  used  in  the  churches."  Broughton,  who 
despised  their  hollow  cant,  and  was  as  hot-tempered  as  he  was  learned, 
denounced  their  cherished  version  as  a  disgrace  to  English  scholar- 
ship ;  and  charged  their  pretended  reverence  for  it  on  their  unwill- 
ingness "  to  lose  their  traps  and  pitfalls."  This  discouragement  did 
not,  however,  cause  him  to  remit  his  efforts  for  this  great  object  ;  for 
in  a  letter  to  Lord  Burleigh  in  1596,  he  speaks  of  "  having  written  to 
all  the  realm  for  the  true  Bible"  ;  and  he  prays  his  Lordship  to  ad- 
vise the  Archbishop,  whose  opposition  seems  to  have  been  generally 
recognized  as  the  sole  hindrance  to  the  work,  "  to  take  heed  lest  he 
bring  the  realm  to  eternal  shame  in  a  matter  the  highest  for  reli- 
gion." * 

We  see,  from  the  foregoing,  that  the  subject  of  a  new  version  of  the 
Scriptures  was  one  familiar  to  English  scholars,  many  years  before  it 
was  proposed  by  Dr.  Reynolds  in  the  Hampton  Court  Conference  ; 
and  that  not  a  few  churchmen  as  well  as  others  acknowledged  the 
absolute  necessity  of  the  work.  How  indeed  could  it  be  otherwise, 
with  the  fact  staring  them  in  the  face  that  the  common  people  were 
daily  reading  in  their  homes  a  version  every  way  superior  to  that 
which  was  read  to  them  '  by  authority,'  on  Sundays  in  the  churches  ? 
The  comparison  thus  constantly  forced  on  the  popular  mind,  and  con- 
verted by  the  warfare  between  Prelacy  and  Puritanism  into  a  matter 

*  For  the  facts  in  this  account  of  Broughton's  efforts  for  a  new  translation,  see 
Strype's  Life  of  Whitgift,  pp.  382,  432,  485,  489,  585,  and  elsewhere. 

Broughton  was  one  of  those  unfortunate  geniuses  who,  with  fine  qualities  and 
high  aims  in  life,  seem  born  to  mar  their  own  fortunes  and  ruin  every  cause  they 
seek  to  promote  through  inability  to  govern  their  tempers  and  tongues.  His  re- 
sentment for  affronts  and  injuries  was  invariably  expressed  in  a  way  to  help  his 
enemy  and  hurt  himself.  Whatever  might  be  the  consequence,  he  could  never 
deny  himself  the  pleasure  of  using  his  sting  ;  and  every  real  or  fancied  wrong  was 
proclaimed  to  the  public  with  a  heat  and  violence  which  gave  his  persecutors  the 
advantage  of  seeming  to  be  the  injured  party.  His  life  was  a  series  of  cruel  dis- 
appointments ;  and  in  most  of  them  he  had  himself  furnished  his  more  crafty  foes 
with  the  weapons  by  which  they  foiled  him.  So  necessary  in  this  world  are  prud- 
ence and  temper,  as  well  as  merit  and  honesty  ! 


244  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

of  lively  practical  interest,  could  not  have  failed  to  become  a  fruitful 
source  of  discussion  among  all  classes,  greatly  to  the  disadvantage  of 
the  State  Church.    ■ 

Now  James,  with  all  his  mean  and  ridiculous  traits  of  character,  pos- 
sessed an  extraordinary  amount  of  shrewdness  in  regard  to  everything 
which  concerned  his  regal  interests  ;  a  faculty  which  he  dignified  with 
the  name  of  Kingcraft,  and  exulted  in  as  his  peculiar  gift  and  glory. 
With  his  eye  fixed  on  the  one  object  of  confirming  and  extending  the 
supremacy,  he  had  in  the  course  of  his  long  reign  attained  no  little  royal 
expertness  in  detecting  the  bearings  of  whatever  was  passing  in  his 
dominions  on  this  central  point  of  interest.  We  have  already  ob- 
served, in  his  remarks  on  the  prayers  of  the  Puritan  clergy,  the  keen- 
ness of  his  scent  when  on  the  track  of  popular  tendencies.  Can  we 
doubt,  then,  that  a  subject  so  important  in  its  relations,  and  so  com- 
monly agitated,  as  a  new  translation  of  the  Bible,  had  been  already 
subjected  in  the  royal  mind  to  the  touchstone  of  prerogative  ?  As 
little  does  his  speech  in  the  Conference  allow  us  to  doubt  that  his 
sagacity  had  discerned  what  Whitgift  and  Bancroft  had  failed  tt>  see  ; 
namely,  that  the  demand  of  the  age  must  be  directed,  not  resisted  ; 
converted  if  possible  into  an  instrument  of  absolutism,  not  suffered  to 
become  an  instrument  of  subverting  it.  Sent  out  with  a  prestige  of 
scholarship  which  should  silence  the  reproachful  clamors  of  the  Puri- 
tans and  eclipse  their  favorite  Presbyterian  version,  yet  charged  with 
conservative  influences,  and  linked  indissolubly  with  the  Church  and 
the  Throne,  the  new  version  promised  to  become  the  chief  agent  in 
maintaining  the  established  order.  And  hence  it  was,  that  though 
this  measure  was  suggested  by  the  obnoxious  party  he  was  resolved  to 
crush,  and  was  evidently  relied  on  by  the  nonconformist  leaders  for 
the  promotion  of  the  New  Discipline,*  it  was  qietly  appropriated  by 
James  and  used  for  his  own  purposes. 

*  Their  plan  was  both  sagacious  and  liberal.  While  desiring  to  deprive  Prelacy 
of  the  advantages  which  it  derived  from  the  Bishops'  Bible,  they  did  not  ask  that 
it  might  be  superseded  by  the  Genevan,  though  confessedly  superior  ;  but,  on  the 
ground  of  its  acknowledged  corruptions  and  imperfections,  prayed  for  a  new 
translation,  firmly  believing  that  if  executed  on  the  principles  of  true  criticism,  it 
could  not  fail  to  sustain  what  they  held  as  truth. 


CHAPTER    XXX. 

THE    COMMON    VERSION — CONTINUED. 

How  strong  a  hold  the  project  of  a  new  version  had  taken  of  the 
mind  of  James,  and  how  well  he  had  considered  the  means  for  making 
it  answerable  to  his  ends,  appears  from  the  measures  which  he  imme- 
diately adopted  for  carrying  it  into  execution.  Taking  the  matter 
into  his  own  hands,  he  set  on  foot  the  necessary  preliminaries  without 
delay,  and  on  a  scale  surpassing  all  that  had  been  witnessed  in  Eng- 
land in  connection  with  Bible  translation.  Bancroft,  now  fully  won 
over  to  the  King's  policy,  and  appointed  general  overseer  and  final 
reviser  of  the  work,  pushed  it  forward  with  characteristic  vigor  and 
efficiency.  Before  the  end  of  July  fifty-four  scholars  had  been 
selected  as  translators,  and  arranged  into  six  companies,  two  of  which 
were  to  meet  at  Westminster,  and  two  at  each  of  the  universities. 
The  heads  of  the  universities  were  directed,  moreover,  to  add  to  the 
number  such  others  as  ihey  might  deem  qualified  ;  and  the  bishops 
were  exhorted  to  spare  no  pains  for  securing  the  suggestions  and  criti- 
cisms of  the  best  scholars  in  their  respective  dioceses  ;  "  that  so,"  in 
his  Majesty's  words,  "  our  said  intended  translation  may  have  the 
help  and  furtherance  of  all  our  principal  learned  men  within  this,  our 
kingdom. 

The  maintenance  and  remuneration  of  the  translators  was  the 
King's  next  care.  The  following  letter,  written  by  him  to  the  Bishop 
of  London,  exhibits  his  plan  for  this  object.* 

"  Right  trusty  and  well-beloved,  we  greet  you  well.  Whereas,  we  have 
appointed  certain  learned  men,  to  the  number  of  fifty-four,  for  the  translating  of 
the  Bible,  and  that  in  this  number  divers  of  them  have  either  no  ecclesiastical 
preferment  at  all,  or  else  so  very  small  as  the  same  is  far  unmeet  for  men  of  their 
deserts  ;  and  yet  we  of  ourself,  in  any  convenient  time  cannot  well  remedy  it. 
Therefore  we  do  heartily  require  you  that  presently  you  write,  in  our  name,  as 
well  to  the  Archbishop  of  York  as  to  the  rest  of  the  bishops  of  the  province  of 
Canterbury, f  signifying  unto  them  that  we  do  will,  and  straitly  charge  every  one 

*  From  Regist.  III.  Whitgift.  Copied  from  Wilkins'  Concilia  Magnse  Britan. 
et  Hibern,  vol.  iv.,  p.  407  (Harvard  Univ.  library)  ;  also  in  Strype's  Life  of 
Whitgift,  p.  950. 

f  Archbishop  Whitgift  had  died  in  the  preceding  February,  only  a  few  weeks 


246  ENGLISH    BIBLE    TRANSLATION. 

of  them,  as  also  the  other  bishops  of  the  province  of  York,  as  they  tender  our 
good  favor  toward  them,  that  (all  excuses  set  apart)  when  a  prebend  or  parsonage 
being  rated  in  our  book  of  taxations,  the  prebend  at  twenty  pound  at  the  least,* 
and  the  parsonage  to  the  like  sum  and  upward,  shall  next  upon  any  occasion 
happen  to  be  void,  and  to  be  either  of  their  patronage  and  gift,  or  the  like  par- 
sonage so  void  to  be  of  the  patronage  and  gift  of  any  person  whatsoever  ;  they  do 
make  stay  thereof,  and  admit  none  unto  it  until  certifying  us  of  the  avoidance  of 
it,  and  of  the  name  of  the  patron,  (if  it  be  not  of  their  own  gift),  we  may  com- 
mend for  the  same  some  such  of  the  learned  men  as  we  shall  think  fit  to  be  pre- 
ferred unto  it  ;  not  doubting  of  the  bishops'  readiness  to  satisfy  us  herein,  or 
that  any  of  the  laity,  when  we  shall  in  time  move  them  to  so  good  and  religious 
an  act,  will  be  unwilling  to  give  us  the  like  due  contentment  and  satisfaction  :  We 
ourselves  having  taken  the  same  order  for  such  prebends  and  benefices  as  shall  be 
void  in  our  gift. 

"  While  We  write  to  you  of  others,  you  must  apply  it  to  yourself;  as  also  not 
to  forget  to  move  the  said  Archbishop,  and  all  Bishops,  with  their  Deans  and 
Chapters,  as  touching  the  other  point  to  be  imparted  otherwise  by  you  unto 
them."  [Then  follows  the  direction  referred  to  above  for  securing  the  voluntary 
criticisms  of  the  learned  clergy  of  each  diocese.]  "  Given  under  Our  Signet  at 
Our  Palace  of  Westminister,  the  22d  of  July,  in  the  second  year  of  our  reign  of 
England,  France,  and  Ireland,  and  of  Scotland,  xxxvii. " 

This  letter  the  Bishop  of  London  communicated  to  each  of  his 
brethren,  as  directed,  accompanied  by  one  from  himself,  dated  July 
31st,  urging  upon  their  attention  "  how  careful  his  Majesty  is  for  the 
providing  of  livings  for  those  learned  men."  "  I  doubt  not,"  he 
adds,  "  that  your  Lordship  will  have  a  due  regard  of  his  Majesty's 
request  herein,  as  it  is  fit  and  meet  ;  and  that  you  will  take  such 
orders,  both  with  your  chancellor,  register,  aad  such  of  your  Lord- 
ship's officers  who  shall  have  intelligence  of  the  premises,  as  also  with 
the  dean  and  chapter  of  your  cathedral  church,  whom  his  Majesty  like- 
wise requireth  to  be  put  in  mind  of  his  pleasure  herein  ;  not  forget- 
ting the  latter  part  of  his  Majesty's  letter,  touching  the  informing  of 
yourself  of  the  fittest  linguists  in  your  diocese,  for  to  perform,  and 
speedily  to  return,  that  which  his  Majesty  is  so  careful  to  have  faith- 
fully performed,  "f 

after  the  Hampton  Court  Conference.  His  apprehension  that  the  Puritan  influ- 
ence in  the  coming  Parliament  might  undo  what  had  been  so  satisfactorily  settled 
in  the  Conference  is  supposed  to  have  hastened  his  death.  So  well  aware  was 
he  that  the  measures  there  carried  through,  with  so  high  a  hand,  were  in  opposi- 
tion to  the  wishes  of  the  most  substantial  part  of  the  nation  ! 

*  This,  it  will  be  recollected,  would  be  equal  to  many  times  the  same  sum  at 
the  present  time.  Thus  Fuller  (vol.  iii.,  p.  220)  mentions,  as  an  instance  of  Arch- 
bishop Mutton's  munificence,  that  "  he  founded  a  hospital  in  the  north  and  en- 
dowed it  with  a  yearly  revenue  of  thirty-five  pounds." 

)  AVilkins  and  Strype.  as  quoted*  above: 


THE   COMMON   VERSION — CONTINUED.  247 

To  this  letter  was  added  a  postscript  explaining  "  that  other  point  " 
in  his  Majesty's  letter,  which,  being  a  matter  of  delicacy,  seems  to 
have  been  committed  orally  to  Bancroft  to  be  by  him  made  known 
confidentially  to  the  other  prelates.  It  was,  in  substance,  this  :  That 
the  immediate  support  of  such  of  the  translators  as  were  without  liv- 
ings, required  a  considerable  sum  to  be  raised  without  delay,  "  which 
his  Majesty  of  his  most  princely  disposition,  was  ready  to  have  borne  ; 
but  that  some  of  the  Lords  (as  things  then  went)  held  it  inconve- 
nient."' A  contribution  for  this  object  was  therefore  requested  of 
the  clergy,  in  his  Majesty's  name  ;  and  as  a  stimulus  to  their  zeal,  the 
bishop  mentioned  that  he  was  directed  "  to  acquaint  his  Majesty  with 
every  man's  liberality  toward  this  godly  work." 

The  following  .letter  from  Chancellor  Cecil  to  the  Vice-chancellor 
and  heads  of  the  University  of  Cambridge,  bearing  the  same  date  as 
that  of  the  King  to  Bancroft,  suggests  still  another  method  of  meeting 
this  necessity,  in  order,  as  it  seems,  that  the  work  might  be  taken  in 
hand  without  delay  :f 

"  After  my  very  hearty  commendations — Whereas  his  Majesty  hath  appointed 
certain  learned  men,  in  and  of  your  university,  to  take  pains  in  translating  some 
portions  of  the  Scripture,  according  to  an  order  in  that  behalf  set  down  (the  copy 
whereof  remaineth  with  Mr.  Lively,  your  Hebrew  lecturer)  his  pleasure  and  com- 
mandment is,  that  you  should  take  such  care  of  that  work,  as  that  if  you  can  re- 
member any  fit  men  to  join  with  the  rest  therein,  you  should  in  his  name  assign 
them  thereunto  ;  and  that  such  as  are  to  be  called  out  of  the  country  may  be 
entertained  in  such  colleges  as  the/ shall  make  choice  of,  without  any  charge  unto 
them  either  for  their  entrance,  their  chamber,  or  their  commons,  except  it  happen 
that  any  do  make  choice  to  remain  in  any  of  the  poorer  colleges  that  are  not  well 
able  to  bear  that  charge,  and  there  such  order  will  be  taken  by  the  Lord  Bishop 
of  London  as  that  the  same  shall  be  defrayed.  His  Majesty  expecteth  that  you 
should  further  the  business  as  much  as  you  can,  as  well  by  kind  usage  of  the 
parties  that  take  pains  therein,  as  by  any  other  means  that  you  can  best  devise  ; 

*  The  royal  finances  were  in  a  desperate  condition,  the  officers  of  the  house- 
hold being  driven  to  their  wit's  end  to  obtain  either  money  or  credit  for  his 
Majesty's  weekly  expenses.  His  persevering  energy  in  pushing  forward  the  new 
version  under  these  embarrassments,  is  all  the  more  worthy  of  notice.  In  1607 
the  King  thus  speaks,  in  a  letter  to  the  Lords,  respecting  the  better  improving  his 
revenue — "  My  Lords  :  The  only  disease  and  consumption  which  I  can  ever  ap- 
prehend as  likeliest  to  endanger  me,  is  this  eating  canker  of  want  ;  which  being 
removed,  I  could  think  myself  as  happy  in  all  other  respects  as  any  other  king  or 
monarch  that  ever  was  since  the  birth  of  Christ.  In  this  disease,  I  am  the 
patient  ;  and  ye  have  promised  to  be  the  physicians,  to  use  the  best  care  upon  me 
that  your  wit,  faithfulness,  and  diligence  can  reach  unto." — Strype's  Annals, 
Appendix,  No.   297. 

I  Lewis'  Hist,  of  Trans,  of  Bible,  p.  313  (from  the  original  in  the  Archives  of 
Cambridge  Univ.) 


248  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

taking  such  order  that  they  may  he  freed  in  the  meanwhile  from  all  lectures  and 
exercises  to  be  supplied  for  them  by  your  grave  directions  ;  and  assuring  them 
that  he  will  hereafter  have  such  princely  care,  as  well  by  himself  as  by  his  bishops 
at  his  commandment,  for  the  preferring  of  every  one  of  them,  as  their  diligence 
and  due  respect  to  his  Majesty's  desire  in  this  so  worthy  an  employment,  shall 
(he  doubteth  not)  very  well  deserve." 

Under  the  same  date  as  his  letter  to  the  bishops,  Bancroft  wrote  to 
the  Cambridge  translators,  informing  them  :* 

"  That  his  Majesty  being  made  acquainted  with  the  choice  of  all  them  to  be 
employed  in  the  translating  of  the  Bible  in  such  sort  as  Mr.  Lively  could  inform 
them,  did  greatly  approve  of  the  said  choice.  And  forasmuch  as  his  Highness 
was  very  desirous  that  the  same  so  religious  a  work  should  admit  no  delay,  he 
had  commanded  him  to  signify  unto  them,  in  his  name,  that  his  pleasure  was 
they  should,  with  all  possible  speed,  meet  together  in  their  university  and  begin 
the  same  ;  that  his  Majesty's  care  for  their  better  continuance  together  they  might 
perceive  by  their  Right  Honorable  Chancellor's  letter  to  the  Vice-chancellor  and 
heads,  but  more  especially  by  the  copy  of  a  letter  written  to  himself  for  order  to 
be  taken  with  all  the  bishops  of  this  realm  in  their  behalf,  which  copy  he  had  here- 
with sent  them  ;  that  he  had  desired  Mr.  Vice-chancellor  to  send  to  such  of  them 
as  were  not  now  present  in  Cambridge  to  will  them  in  his  Majesty's  name  that, 
all  other  occasions  and  business  set  aside,  they  made  their  present  repair  unto 
them  that  were  at  Cambridge.  Upon  whose  coming,  and  after  they  had  prepared 
themselves  for  this  business,  his  Lordship  prayed  they  would  write  presently  unto 
him,  that  he  might  inform  his  Majesty  thereof,  who  could  not  be  satisfied  till  it  was 
in  hand.  Since,  he  was  persuaded,  his  royal  mind  rejoiced  more  in  the  good  hope 
which  he  had  for  the  happy  success  of  that  work  than  of  his  peace  concluded  with 
Spain." 

His  Lordship's  letter  to  the  Vice-chancellor,  referred  to  above,  is 
as  follows  :f 

"  After  my  very  hearty  commendations  :  Being  acquainted  with  a  letter  lately 
written  unto  you  in  his  Majesty's  name  by  your  right  honorable  Chancellor,  and 
having  myself  received  sundry  directions  from  his  Highness  for  the  better  setting 
forward  of  his  most  royal  designment  for  translating  the  Bible,  I  do  accordingly 
move  you,  that  in  his  Majesty's  name,  agreeably  to  the  charge  and  trust  com- 
mitted unto  you,  no  time  may  be  overslipped  by  you  for  the  better  furtherance  of 
this  holy  work.  The  parties'  names  who  are  appointed  to  be  employed  therein 
Mr.  Lively  can  show  you  ;  of  which  number  I  desire  you  by  him  to  take  notice, 
and  to  write  to  such  of  them  as  are  abroad,  in  his  Majesty's  name,  (for  so  far 
my  commission  extendcth),  that  all  excuses  set  aside,  they  do  presently  come  to 
Cambridge,  there  to  address  themselves  forthwith  to  this  business.  I  am  bold  to 
trouble  you  herewith,  because  you  know  better  who  are  absent,  where  they  are, 
and  how  to  send  unto  them  than  I  do.  And  were  it  only,  I  suppose,  to  ease  me 
of  that  pains,  being  myself  not  idle  in  the  meantime,  I  am  persuaded  I  might  ob- 
tain at  your  hands  as  great  a  favor.     You  will  scarcely  conceive  how  earnest  his 

*  Lewis,  p.  314.  f   Ibid.,  p.  S15. 


THE    COMMON   VERSION — CONTINUED.  249 

Majesty  is  to  have  this  work  begun  ;  and  therefore  I  doubt  not  you  will,  for  your 
parts,  in  anything  that  is  within  your  compass,  as  well  in  this  moved  now  unto 
you,  as  for  their  entertainment  when  they  come  and  better  encouragement,  set 
forward  the  same.  And  so,  being  always  ready  to  assist  you,  if  anv  difficulties  do 
arise  in  the  progress  of  this  business,  I  commit  you  unto  the  tuition  of  Almighty 
God." 

With  this  letter  was  likewise  sent  a  copy  of  the  King's  Instruc- 
tions to  the  Translators,  being  a  complete  set  of  Rules  devised 
and  ordained  by  his  Majesty  for  their  guidance  in  the  preparation  of 
the  work.  As  a  statement  both  of  the  methods  and  the  principles  on 
which  our  Common  Version  was  executed,  they  are  worthy  of  the 
reader's  most  attentive  consideration.     They  were  as  follows  :* 

1.  The  ordinary  Bible  read  in  the  church,  commonly  called  the  Bishops'  Bible, 
to  be  followed  and  as  little  altered  as  the  original  will  permit. 

2.  The  names  of  the  prophets  and  the  holy  writers,  with  the  other  names  in  the 
text,  to  be  retained  as  near  as  may  be  accordingly  as  they  are  vulgarly  used. 

3.  The  ecclesiastical  words  to  be  kept,  namely,  as  the  word  church  not  to  be 
translated  congregation,  etc. 

4.  When  any  word  hath  divers  significations,  that  to  be  kept  which  hath  been 
most  commonly  used  by  the  most  eminent  Fathers,  being  agreeable  to  the  pro- 
priety of  the  place  and  th&  analogy  of  faith. 

5.  The  division  of  the  chapters  to  be  altered  either  not  at  all, or  as  little  as  may 
be,  if  necessity  so  require. 

6.  No  marginal  notes  at  all  to  be  affixed,  but  only  for  the  explanation  of  the 
Hebrew  or  Greek  words,  which  cannot,  without  some  circumlocution,  so  briefly 
and  fitly  be  expressed  in  the  text. 

7.  Such  quotations  of  places  to  be  marginally  set  down  as  shall  serve  for  the  fit 
references  of  one  Scripture  to  another. 

8.  Every  particular  man  of  each  company  to  take  the  same  chapter  or  chapters 
and,  having  translated  or  amended  them  severally  by  himself  where  he  thinks 
good,  all  to  meet  together,  confer  what  they  have  done,  and  agree  for  their  part 
what  shall  stand. 

9.  As  any  one  company  hath  dispatched  any  one  book  in  this  manner,  they 
shall  send  it  to  the  rest  to  be  considered  of  seriously  and  judiciously  ;  for  his 
Majesty  is  very  careful  in  this  point. 

10.  If  any  company,  upon  the  review  of  the  book  so  sent,  shall  doubt  or  differ 
upon  any  places,  to  send  them  word  thereof,  note  the  places,  and  therewithal 
send  their  reasons  ;  to  which,  if  they  consent  not,  the  difference  to  be  compound- 
ed at  the  general  meeting,  which  is  to  be  of  the  chief  persons  of  each  company,  at 
the  end  of  the  work. 

11.  When  any  place  of  special  obscurity  is  doubted  of,  letters  to  be  directed  by 
authority,  to  send  to  any  learned  in  the  land  for  his  judgment  in  such  a  place. 

12.  Letters  to  be  sent  from  every  bishop  to  the  rest  of  his  clergy,  admonishing 
them  of  this  translation  in  hand,  and  to  move  and  charge  as  many  as,  being  skill- 
ful in  the  tongues,  have  taken  pains  in  that  kind,  to  send  his  particular  observa- 
tions to  the  company,  either  at  Westminster,  Cambridge,  or  Oxford. 

*  Fuller's  Ch.  Hist.,  Book  X.,  Sect.  Hi.,  2. 


250  ENGLISH   BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

13.  The  directors  in  each  company  to  be  the  Deans  of  Westminster  and  Chester 
for  that  place,  and  the  King's  Professors  in  the  Hebrew  and  Greek  in  each  Uni- 
versity. 

14.  These  translations  to  be  used  when  they  agree  better  with  the  text  than  the 
Bishops'  Bible  ;  namely,  Tyndale's,  Matthew's,  Coverdale's,  Whitchurch's  [Cran- 
mer's],  the  Genevan. 

Of  the  fifty-four  appointed  translators,  only  forty-seven  actually 
engaged  in  the  work.  Among  these  it  was  apportioned  in  the  follow- 
ing manner  : 

Of  the  three  companies  to  whom  was  committed  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, the  first  — ten  in  number — met  at  Westminster,  under  the  direc- 
tion of  Dr.  Launcelot  Andrews,  Dean  of  Westminster.  To  them  was 
assigned  the  Pentateuch  and  other  historical  books,  as  far  as  the  end 
of  2d  Kings. 

The  second — eight  in  number — with  Edward  Lively,  regius  Profes- 
sor of  Hebrew  at  Cambridge  as  President,  met  at  that  university. 
They  had  for  their  portion  from  the  first  of  Chronicles  to  the  end  of 
Ecclesiastes. 

The  third  met  at  Oxford,  under  Dr.  John  Harding,  President  of 
Magdalen  College,  and  Professor  of  Hebrew.  They  took  the  remain- 
der of  the  Old  Testament,  from  Isaiah  to  Malachi. 

Of  the  two  companies  on  the  New  Testament,  the  first — consisting 
of  eight  translators — met  at  Oxford,  under  Dr.  Thomas  Ravis,  Dean 
of  Christ's  Church.  Their  portion  was  the  four  Gospels,  the  Acts 
of  the  Apostles,  and  the  Apocalypse. 

To  the  second— seven  in  number — who  met  at  Westminster,  under 
Dr.  Wm.  Barlow,  Dean  of  Chester,  were  assigned  the  Epistles. 

The  remaining  company  assembled  at  Cambridge  under  Dr. 
Dupont,  Prebend  of  Ely,  and  Master  of  Jesus'  College,  consisted 
of  seven  scholars,  devoted  exclusively  to  the  Apocrypha. 

A  disagreement  having  arisen  among  the  Cambridge  translators  in 
regard  to  the  application  of  the  third  and  fourth  rules,  his  Majesty, 
being  informed  of  the  same  through  the  Bishop  of  London,  added  a 
new  feature  to  the  arrangements,  viz.  :  a  special  Board,  consisting  of 
"  three  or  four  of  the  most  ancient  and  grave  divines,  to  be  assigned 
by  the  Vice-Chancellor,  upon  conference  with  the  rest  of  the  heads, 
to  be  Overseers  of  the  Translation,  as  well  Hebrew  as  Greek,  for  the 
better  observation  of  the  rules  appointed  by  his  Highness,  and  espe- 
cially concerning  the  third  and  fourth  rules."* 

*  Lewis,  p.  319. — In  these  rules  and  regulations,  we  find  a  sufficient  explana- 
tion of  the  exclusion  of  Hugh  Broughton  from  the  list  of  translators.  He  would 
never  have  subjected  his  scholarship  to  such  restraints,  or  yielded  to  the  arbitrary 


THE   COMMON   VERSION — CONTINUED.  25  I 

The  exact  time  when  the  translation  was  commenced  has  not  been 
ascertained.  It  has  been  currently  supposed  that  the  death,  in  May, 
1605,  of  Edward  Lively,  the  most  distinguished  Hebraist  connected 
with  the  work,  delayed  even  its  commencement  till  considerably  after 
that  time.  But  it  seems  to  be  pretty  clearly  settled  that  the  first 
revision  was  finished  some  time  in  1607  ;  and  from  a  remark  in  the 
Preface,  it  appears  that  this  had  occupied  not  less  than  three  years, 
which  carries  the  beginning  of  their  work  back  to  r6o4. 

Their  method  of  proceeding,  in  accordance  with  the  King's  direc- 
tions, was  as  follows.  The  members  of  a  company  all  took  the  same 
portion,  which  each  first  revised  by  himself  ;  then  all  met  together  to 
make  up  a  copy  on  which  they  could  agree.  The  part  thus  com- 
pleted was  then  submitted  to  the  other  companies  for  their  criticisms  ; 
and  if  these  were  approved  by  the  first  revisers,  they  were  adopted  as 
permanent  ;  if  otherwise,  they  were  reserved  for  the  judgment  of  the 
final  revisers. 

The  whole  version  being  completed  in  this  manner,  three  copies 
were  made  of  it  (one  at  each  place)  and  delivered  to  a  committee  of 
twelve — s{x  of  whom  were  chosen  by  the  translators  from  their  own 
number — two  from  each  company— and  six,  it  is  supposed,  were 
selected  by  the  King,  according  to  his  first  intention,  from  his  bishops 
and  other  learned  ecclesiastics  not  previously  connected  with  the 
translation.* 

The  work  having  received  this  second  revision,  passed  into  the 
hands  of  Bilson,  Bishop  of  Winchester,  and  Dr  Miles  Smith  (soon 
after  made  Bishop  of  Gloucester)!,  who  again  revised  the  whole,  and 
prefixed  arguments  to  the  several  books.  By  the  King's  direction  Dr. 
Smith  also  wrote  a  Preface  for  the  woric,  which  is  chiefly  occupied 
with  a  defence  of  its  design  and  character  against  various  classes  of 
opposers. 

decisions  of  men  confessedly  far  inferior  to  him  in  learning.  Strype  tells  us — 
Life  of  Whitgift,  p.  589 — that  in  the  selection  of  translators,  such  were  avoided 
"  as  should  affect  many  alterations,  and  different  readings  from  the  former  ver- 
sion, more  than  needed.  Of  which  sort,"  he  adds,  "  was  the  great  linguist  Mr. 
Broughton,  whose  mind  the  Archbishop  knew  full  well,  having  divers  years 
before  condemned  that  translation,  charging  it  with  a  great  number  of  errors  un- 
deservedly, and  treated  very  rudely  those  grave  and  learned  bishops  that  were  em- 
ployed in  it,  as  though  they  had  translated  from  the  Latin,  and  wanted  sufficient 
skill." 

*  Introd.  to  Bagster's  English  Hexapla,  p.  108. 

f  Next  to  Bancroft,  Bilson  had  made  himself  conspicuous  among  the  prelates 
of  the  Hampton  Court  Conference,  in  opposition  to  the  Puritans.  Dr.  Smith's 
sentiments  toward  them  are  sufficiently  manifest  in  the  tone  of  his  Preface,  and 
in  his  speedy  promotion  to  the  Bench  of  Bishops. 


252  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

Finally,  the  Bishop  of  London  received  it  in  charge,  and  bestowed 
such  finishing  touches  as  were  yet  needed  to  fit  it  for  its  destined 
position. 

It  was  at  length  published  in  1611,  with  a  dedication  to  the  King, 
in  which  flattery  was  carried  to  its  culminating  point.  The  title  page 
proclaimed  that  it  had  been  executed  "  by  his  Majesty's  special  com- 
mandment," and  that  it  was  "  appointed  to  be  read  in  churches."* 

Thus  have  we  traced  the  origin  of  our  common  version,  and  the 
principles  and  method  observed  in  its  preparation.  It  only  remains 
to  make  a  few  remarks  in  regard  to  the  character  of  the  version,  which 
was  the  product  of  so  singular  a  combination  of  influences. 

The  breadth  of  the  King's  plan,  as  compared  with  that  of  Arch- 
bishop Parker,  is  worthy  of  special  notice.  It  was  the  Primate's  aim 
to  advance  the  cause  of  Episcopacy  by  excluding  all  but  bishops  from 
a  share  in  preparing  the  Bible  to  be  used  in  Divine  service  ;  thus 
placing  them  before  the  people  as  a  distinct  sacred  class,  their  author- 
ized teachers  and  directors  in  matters  of  religion.  This  had,  no 
doubt,  some  advantages  ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  it  divided  them 
from  the  sympathy  of  the  great  body  of  English  scholars,  exposed 
their  work  and  their  own  pretensions  to  unsparing  criticism,  and  gave 
to  the  claims  of  the  Genevan  version  the  fairest  chance  of  recogni- 
tion. The  plan  of  James,  on  the  other  hand,  opened  a  field  for  the 
scholarship  of  England.  Her  chief  schools  of  learning  were  invited 
to  contribute  to  it  their  choicest  sons.  All  classes  of  the  clergy  were 
represented  in  it.  Even  Puritan  scholarship  was  welcomed  to  a  dis- 
tinguished place  in  the  noble  task.  Its  importance  and  dignity  were 
further  enhanced  by  the  King's  requirement  that  all  other  literary 
employment — even  lectures  in  the  university — should  be  relinquished 
for  the  time,  and  that  the  translators  should  be  relieved  of  all  care  for 
their  own  support  ;  while  the  royal  employer  pledged  himself  to 
reward  their  labor  by  honorable  and  profitable  preferment  for  life. 
Nor  was  this  all.  The  co-operation  of  every  learned  man  in  the  king- 
dom, by  suggestions  and  criticisms  for  the  use  of  the  immediate  trans- 
lators, was  solicited  with  an  urgency  which  would  give  compliance 
the  grace  of  a  favor  to  the  King  himself.     Could  a  method  have  been 

*  "  No  evidence,  however"  (says  Wescott,  in  his  History  of  the  English  Bible, 
pp.  157-8),  "  has  yet  been  produced  to  show  that  the  version  was  ever  publicly 
sanctioned  by  Convocation  or  by  Parliament,  or  by  the  Privy  Council,  or  by  the 
King.  It  gained  its  currency  partly,  it  may  have  been,  by  the  weight  of  the  king's 
name,  partly  by  the  personal  authority  of  the  prelates  and  scholars  who  had  been 
engaged  upon  it,  but  still  more  by  its  own  intrinsic  superiority  over  its  rivals." 

T.  J.  C. 


THE   COMMON   VERSION — CONTINUED.  253 

more  skillfully  devised  for  enlisting  in  the  new  version  the  universal 
interest  of  scholars,  and  for  turning  all  eyes  to  it  as  a  great  national 
work  ?  But  it  was  also  a  Protestant  work.  Papists  alone  had  no 
part  in  it.  And  thus  it  appealed  to  all  good  Protestants  as  a  recogni- 
tion of  their  common  faith,  and  their  common  detestation  of  the  cor- 
rupt and  bloody  Church  of  Rome. 

So  liberal,  so  catholic  was  the  enterprise,  when  viewed  on  one  side. 
Let  us  now  look  at  it  from  another  point — the  principles  to  be  ob- 
served in  its  execution.  The  first,  third,  and  fourth  of  the  King's 
rules  for  the  translators  furnish  the  answer  on  this  point.  The  ordinary 
Bible  read  in  the  Church,  commonly  called  the  Bishops'  Bible,  is  to 
be  followed,  and  as  little  altered  as  the  original  will  permit.  The 
principle  adopted  in  that  version  in  regard  to  ecclesiastical  words,  as 
church  for  congregation,  is  to  be  still  binding.  Words  with  divers  sig- 
nifications are  to  be  translated  according  to  the  use  of  the  Fathers,  if 
agreeable  to  the  propriety  of  the  place  and  the  analogy  of  faith.  In 
other  words,  the  appearance  of  change,  which  might  throw  discredit 
on  the  authority  of  the  Church  is  to  be  cautiously  avoided  ;  the  eccle- 
siastical terms  which  subserve  the  present  constitution  of  the  Church 
are  to  be  retained,  and  not  translated  ;  the  translation  of  doubtful 
words  is  to  be  decided  by  the  doctrines  of  the  Church. 

If  these  rules  have  any  other  meaning,  it  must  be  shown  on  other 
testimony  than  that  of  the  version  itself.  That  they  contained  the 
pith  and  marrow  of  James'  design  is  seen  also  in  that  committee  of 
the  "most  ancient  and  grave  divines,"  appointed  for  the  express 
object  of  securing  conformity  to  the  King's  wishes  in  these  particu- 
lars. It  is  noticeable,  moreover,  that  the  prizes  held  out  to  the  trans- 
lators as  a  stimulus  to  their  industry  and  ambition,  were  high  posi- 
tions in  the  Church  ;  and  of  course  not  to  be  secured  without  sub- 
scription to  its  doctrines  and  discipline.  Thus  the  accuracy  of  the 
version  was  to  be  made  subordinate  to  considerations  of  expediency  ; 
and  the  scholarship  concentrated  on  it  was  but  to  give  new  solidity 
and  dclat  to  an  ecclesiastical  system  which  the  majority  of  the  Eng- 
lish nation  at  that  very  time  deemed  at  variance  with  the  word  of 
Cod.* 

*  "  The  following  observation  will  confirm,"  says  Hallam,  "  what  may  startle 
some  readers,  that  the  Puritans,  or  at  least  those  who  rather  favored  them,  had 
a  majority  among  the  Protestant  gentry  in  the  Queen's  [Elizabeth's]  days.  It  is 
agreed  on  all  hands,  and  is  quite  manifest,  that  they  predominated  in  the  House 
of  Commons  ;  but  that  House  was  composed,  as  it  has  ever  been,  of  the  principal 
landed  proprietors,  and  as  much  represented'  the  general  wish  of  the  commu- 
nity, when  it  demanded  a  farther  reform  in  religious  matters,  as  on  any  other 


254  ENGLISH   BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

The  same  object  is  manifest  also  in  the  succeeding  measures.  The 
next  step  in  the  original  plan  was  to  subject  it  to  the  examination  of 
the  bishops  ;  and  this  seems  to  have  been  substantially  followed  in  the 
third  revision  by  a  select  committee  consisting  of  six  translators,  and 
the  same  number  of  Church  dignitaries  not  concerned  in  the  transla- 
tion. To  this  succeeded  a  fourth,  by  two  high-churchmen  ;  and 
finally  it  passed  into  the  hands  of  Bancroft,  now  Archbishop  of  Can- 
terbury— a  man  without  scholarship,  without  scruples,  and  with  no 
power  above  him  but  the  King,  whose  objects  in  this  undertaking 
precisely  coincided  with  his  own.  But  though  he  gave  account  to  no 
man  of  his  proceedings  in  this  matter,  yet  the  whole  body  of  the 
translators  stood  before  the  public  as  endorsers  of  all  he  might  please 
to  do  ;  and  the  Puritans  were  made  to  bear  involuntary  witness  to  the 
divine  institution  of  the  State  Church,  no  less  than  the  most  zealous 
of  her  sons.* 

The  excellencies  and  the  defects  of  the  version  thus  produced  are 
just  what  we  should  expect  from  its  history.  King  James'  third  and 
fourth  rules,  while  they  decided  its  character  in  certain  important 
respects,  on  principles  as  arbitrary  and  unsound  as  those  adopted  by 
the  Rhemish  translators,  affected  the  expression  only  in  single  points. 
Portions  of  the  work  reflect  the  highest  credit  on  the  scholarship  of 
the  time.  Bedell  and  Reynolds,  and  some  other  of  the  revisers,  were 
undoubtedly  masters  of  all  that  was  then  known  of  sacred  criticism  ; 
and  that  they  bestowed  their  utmost  pains  on  the  work  there  can  be 
no  question.  But  all  the  translators  were  not  scholars  ;  and  conse- 
quently, other  portions  fall  decidedly  behind   some  of  the  previous 

subject.  One  would  imagine,  by  the  manner  in  which  some  express  themselves, 
that  the  discontented  were  a  small  faction,  who,  by  some  unaccountable  means, 
in  despite  of  the  government  and  the  nation,  formed  a  majority  of  all  parliaments 
under  Elizabeth  and  her  two  successors." — Constitutional  History  of  England,  ch. 
iv.,  Note  to  p.  115  (Am.  edition.) 

*  What  use  was  made  of  this  power  by  Bancroft  is  unknown.  He  was  pub- 
licly charged  with  having  altered  the  version  in  fourteen  places.  Dr.  Smith  is 
said  to  have  admitted,  in  answer  to  complaints  from  previous  revisers,  that  "  he 
was  so  potent,  there  was  no  resisting  him." 

The  reader  of  this  history  will  find  a  remarkable  coincidence  between  the 
rendering  of  1  Peter  ii.,  13  in  King  James'  Revision,  {to  the  King,  as  supreme,) 
and  the  language  used  by  him  at  the  Hampton  Court  Conference  (p.  238;.  This 
passage  was  rendered  in  the  Bishops'  Bible  ;  unto  the  King,  as  having  the  pre- 
eminence. Among  the  other  versions  to  be  consulted  when  that  of  the  Bishops 
failed,  it  stood  thus  :  Tyndale,  Coverdale,  Cranmer  and  Matthew's  :  unto  the 
King,  as  unto  the  chief  head  ;  Genevan  :  unto  the  King  as  unto  the  superior.  To 
whom  do  we  owe  it  that  King  James'  Revision  was  the  first  among  English 
translations  which  recognized  in  words  the  A'ing's  supremacy  ? 


THE   COMMON   VERSION — CONTINUED.  255 

versions.  Passages  are  mistranslated  which  Tyndale  and  Coverdale 
and  the  Genevan — some  or  all  of  them — had  translated  right.  As  a 
whole,  moreover,  the  work  could  not  but  exhibit  the  retrogressive 
tendency  of  that  rigid  conservatism  which  had  made  adherence  to  a 
defective  version  the  fundamental  rule  of  the  revision,  and  deviation 
from  it  the  exception,  only  to  be  allowed  in  cases  of  necessity. 
Under  this  pressure,  much  would  be  left  untouched  which  an  un- 
shackled translator,  aiming  only  to  present  the  most  perfect  reflection 
of  the  divine  original,  would  have  changed  for  the  better  ;  and  the 
changes  that  were  ventured  on  would  often  be  made  with  a  timid 
hand.  Its  imperfection  is,  however,  to  be  ascribed  in  part  to  the 
King's  haste,  which'  did  not  allow  sufficient  time  for  the  ripening  of 
the  work.  In  the  opinion  of  the  learned  Genebrard,  a  scholar  as  well 
qualified  to  judge  on  such  matters  as  any  of  that  age,  the  labor  of 
thirty  men  for  thirty  years  would  not  have  been  too  large  an  estimate 
for  the  thorough  execution  of  so  great  a  work.*  But  James,  while  he 
wanted  the  best  of  versions,  wanted  it  for  a  specific  purpose  ;  and 
that  purpose  could  not  be  answered  even  by  an  immaculate  version 
thirty  years  ahead.  His  anxiety  for  its  completion  is  made  the  basis 
of  the  following  high-flown  compliment  in  the  dedication  of  the 
work  : 

"  Of  the  infinite  arguments  of  a  right  Christian  and  religious  affection  in  your 
Majesty,  none  is  more  forcible  to  declare  it  to  others  than  the  vehement  and  per- 
petuated desire  of  accomplishing  and  publishing  this  work,  which  we  now  pre- 
sent unto  your  Majesty.  For  when  once  your  Majesty,  out  of  deep  judgment, 
had  apprehended  how  convenient  it  was  that  out  of  the  Original  Sacred  Tongues, 
together  with  comparing  of  the  labors,  both  in  our  own  and  other  foreign  lan- 
guages, of  many  worthy  men  who  went  before  us,  there  should  be  one  more  exact 
translation  of  the  Holy  Scriptures  into  the  English  tongue  ;  your  Majesty  did 
never  desist  to  urge  and  to  excite  those  to  whom  it  was  commended,  that  the 
work  might  be  hastened,  and  that  the  business  might  be  expedited  in  so  decent 
a  manner  as  a  matter  of  such  importance  might  justly  require." 

It  has  been  objected,  also,  to  the  method  prescribed  by  James,  that 
decision  by  plurality  of  voices  is  not  always  the  safest  method  of  reach- 
ing philological  conclusions.  It  is  obvious  upon  reflection,  moreover, 
that  the  plan  of  successive  sets  of  revisers,  though  at  first  sight  prom- 
ising faultless  accuracy,  may  prove,  in  practice,  quite  the  reverse. 
For  if  the  work  should  pass  from  the  better  into  the  worse  hands,  it 
would  be  marred  rather  than  mended  by  the  additional  labor  We 
have  no  evidence  that  among  the  revisers  employed  by  James  there 

*  He  reckoned  the  necessarv  cost  at  200,000  crowns. 


256  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

were  any  more  faithful  or  competent  than  those  who  performed  the 
first  revision  ;  and  it  is  at  least  probable  that  had  it  been  given  to  the 
public  as  they  left  it,  it  would  have  stood  better  the  test  of  after 
times.  That  some  of  them  were  much  dissatisfied  with  the  arbitrary 
handling  of  their  labor  is  beyond  question.  Both  the  Dedication  and 
the  Preface  contain  allusions  to  the  Puritans,  hardly  to  be  explained 
except  on  the  supposition  of  dissatisfaction  in  this  respect  among  a 
part  of  the  translators.  In  the  former,  after  expressing  the  sanguine 
hope  "  thai  the  Church  of  England  will  reap  good  fruit"  by  means  of 
the  new  Bible,  the  writers  petition  that  it  may  receive  the  royal 
support,  both  against  those  enemies  of  the  faith,  the  Papists,  and 
against  the  slanders  of  "  self-conceited  brethren,  who  run  their 
own  ways,  and  give  liking  unto  nothing  but  what  is  framed  by 
themselves,  and  hammered  on  their  anvil."  In  the  Preface  they 
make  particular  mention  that  they  have  on  the  one  hand  "  avoided 
the  scrupulosity  of  the  Puritans,  who  leave  the  old  ecclesiastical 
words  and  betake  them  to  others  ;  as  when  they  put  washing  for  bap- 
tism, and  congregation  for  church  ;  as  on  the  other  side  they  shunned 
the  obscurity  of  the  Papists  in  their  azymes,  tunike,  rational,  holocaust, 
and  a  number  of  such  like,  whereof  their  late  translation  is  full."  At 
the  very  outset  of  this  work,  it  will  be  remembered,  disagreements  of 
this  kind  occasioned  the  appointment  of  an  extra  Board  of  Overseers. 
Dr.  Gell,  who  stood  in  an  intimate  relation  to  one  of  the  translators, 
Dr.  Abbott  (afterward  so  disliked  by  James  as  the  mild  and  liberal 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury),  has  said  of  its  defects  :  "  Yet  is  not  all 
the  blame  to  be  laid  upon  the  translators  ;  but  part  of  it  is  to  be 
shared  with  them  also  who  set  them  at  work,  who  by  reasons  of  state 
limited  them  (as  some  of  them  have  much  complained)  lest  they  might 
be  thought  not  to  set  forth  a  new  translation  but  rather  a  new 
Bible."*  And  he  further  asserts,  that  "  many  mistranslated  words 
and  phrases  by  plurality  of  voices  were  carried  into  the  context,  and 
the  better  translation  was  cast  into  the  margin." 

Such  was  the  origin  and  history  of  our  Common  Version.  The 
facts  thus  brought  to  view,  by  dissipating  the  mysterious  halo  which 
more  than  two  and  a  half  centuries  have  gathered  round  it,  may 
diminish  the  blind  fondness  of  our  regard  ;  but  they  exhibit  also  its 
indisputable  claims  on  our  intelligent  affection  and  veneration. 

It  is  to  be  remembered  with  gratitude,  not  to  James  but  to  an  over- 
ruling Providence,  that  the  objects  the  King  had  in  view  required  no 

*  Essay  toward  the  amendment  of  the  last  Eng.  Trans,  of  the  Bible  (1659), 
Preface,  p.  29. 


THE   COMMON    VERSION — CONTINUED.  257 

perversion  or  obscuration  of  the  essential  doctrines  of  our  faith. 
The  foundation  still  stood  sure  ;  the  wells  of  salvation  still  gushed 
full  and  free,  and  all  who  would  might  drink  and  live.  Even  James' 
conservative  narrowness  was  made  the  instrument  of  securing  to  the 
version  one  feature  of  inestimable  value.  We  owe  it  to  his  anxiety  for 
the  credit  of  the  Bible  already  sanctioned  by  the  Church,  that  the 
English  Scriptures  still  speak  to  us  of  these  later  days  in  substantially 
the  same  simple,  noble,  glowing  phraseology  in  which  Tyndale  so  long 
before  had  clothed  the  sacred  oracles  for  the  English  people.  That 
King  James'  revisers  could  not  have  changed  its  general  manner  for 
the  better  is  sufficiently  evident  from  the  specimens  of  their  ability 
which  they  have  furnished  in  single  cases.  Whether  in  this  respect  it 
can  ever  be  essentially  improved,  may  well  be  questioned.  It  is  at 
least  certain  that  the  English  mind,  thus  long  accustomed  to  a  style  so 
in  unison  with  the  simple  majesty  of  the  inspired  original,  will  be 
slow  to  accept  of  any  version  conceived  in  a  totally  different  spirit. 

Nor  must  we  forget  that  this  version,  though  the  immediate  product 
of  James'  selfish  ambition,  was  no  less  truly  the  offspring  of  English 
Protestantism.  It  owed  its  existence,  primarily,  to  that  deep-voiced 
popular  demand  for  the  word  of  God,  and  for  that  word  in  its  purity, 
which  had  been  so  long  one  of  the  most  striking  as  it  was  the  noblest 
exponent  of  Anglo-Saxon  piety.  He  seized  upon  this  generous  public 
sentiment,  and  used  it  for  his  own  ends.  But  none  the  less  was  its 
life  from  the  hearts  of  the  people  ;  none  the  less  does  it  bear  witness 
to  that  law  of  progress,  which  had  already  marked  the  course  of  Eng- 
lish history  for  more  than  two  centuries  with  successive  vernacular 
translations. 

In  the  opening  chapter  of  this  volume  the  Bible  is  claimed  to  be  the 
true  Magna  Charta  of  the  people.  This  has  fully  appeared  in  the 
facts  of  the  preceding  history.  What  else  awakened  in  the  bosoms  of 
the  down-trodden  English  masses  those  aspirations  after  light,  that 
consciousness  of  manhood,  that  sense  of  moral  obligation,  which  in- 
spired and  sustained  their  long  struggle  with  tyranny  ?  Through  all 
the  stages  of  this  eventful  story,  embracing  more  than  two  centuries, 
the  direct  influence  of  the  Bible  in  raising  the  common  mind,  in  im- 
parting to  it  a  knowledge  of  its  rights,  and  a  fitness  for  enjoying  them, 
is  attested  by  facts  so  numerous  and  so  striking  that  the  wonder  is 
they  should  ever  have  been  overlooked.  We  have  seen  it  giving  birth 
in  the  fourteenth  century,  to  religious  inquiry  and  spiritual  freedom, 
and  in  connection  with  these  to  the  spirit  of  civil  liberty.  Under 
Henry  VIII.,  under  Bloody  Mary,  what  numbers  were  strengthened 
by  it  to  endure  death,  and  shame  worse  than  death,  rather  than  sub- 


258  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

mit  to  be  enslaved  in  soul  !  In  the  reign  of  Elizabeth  these  influences 
of  the  Bible  developed  themselves  still  more,  as  the  use  cf  it  was  more 
general  and  unrestrained.  Who  were  then  the  advocates  of  a  spirit- 
ual worship,  as  opposed  to  that  of  outward  rites  and  garb  and  post- 
ure ;  of  equality  among  the  ministers  of  Christ,  and  of  the  rights  of 
the  laity  as  members  with  them  of  the  Christian  body  ?  Who  pleaded 
for  the  rights  ot  conscience,  for  free  discussion,  and  an  unrestricted 
press  ?  None  other  than  those  who  held  to  the  Bible,  as  supreme  and 
sole  authority  in  religion. 

Could  we  trace  this  great  principle  still  farther  down  the  stream  of 
English  history,  we  should  find  that  the  forewarnings  of  Whitgift  and 
his  predecessors  had  something  of  prophetic  insight.  The  revolution 
of  1642  developed  what  they  had  so  much  dreaded,  its  dangerous 
leaning  to  "  a  Popularity."*  The  inspiration  of  the  Puritan  soldier 
was  the  "  Soldier's  Bible. "f  But  the  great  crisis  of  1688,  when  Eng- 
lish nonconformists  held  the  balance  of  political  power,  revealed  in  it 
a  still  nobler  element.  Then  were  seen  Presbyterians,  Independents, 
Quakers  and  Baptists,  at  the  price  of  their  own  immediate  freedom, 
emolument,  and  honor,  taking  their  stand  side  by  side  with  their 
ancient  oppressor  in  defence  of  the  constitutional  liberties  of  Eng- 
land. 

The  natural  and  complete  unfolding  of  this  principle  in  its  relations 
to  the  state  was  reserved  for  this  western  continent.  The  miniature 
commonwealth  which  sprang  into  being  among  the  snows  of  Ply- 
mouth was  its  own  immediate  offspring  ;  and  its  mission  was  fulfilled 
when  it  had  taught  the  empire  developed  from  that  feeble  germ,  that 
religion  needs  no  other  aid  from  the  state  than  the  guardianship  of 
the  rights  of  conscience  ;  and  that  the  state  needs  no  aid  from  religion, 
except  what  it  derives  from  the  virtues  by  her  implanted  in  the  indi- 
vidual citizen.  These  truths,  though  not  yet  fully  recognized  by  our 
elder  kinsmen,  have  largely  infused  their  spirit  into  the  old  frame- 
work of  English  society  ;  softening  its  hard  mediaeval  features  with 
the  beautiful  light  of  progress  and  practical  freedom.  Alone  among 
the  nations  stand  these  sister  lands  ;  deriving  whatever  is  noble  and 
beneficent  in  their  institutions,  from  the  tendencies  which  the  English 
Bible  has  imparted  to  the  English  mind. 

*  Their  common  designation  of  a  popular  form  of  government. 

f  "  The  Souldicr:  Puckct  Bible :"  London,  1643.     See  Appendix,  No.  III. 


CHAPTER   XXXI. 

DEMAND    FOR    A    MORE    THOROUGH    REVISION. 

We  have  already  seen  that  there  was  much  dissatisfaction  with  some 
of  the  arrangements  made  by  King  James  for  the  execution  of  the 
revision  which  bears  his  name.  The  haste  with  which  the  work  was 
urged  forward,  "  for  reasons  of  state,"  made  it  impossible  to  do  full 
justice  even  to  the  then  existing  materials  for  a  thorough  revision.* 
It  is  now  conceded  that  the  work  would  have  been  improved  by  a 
more  thorough  comparison  of  the  earlier  English  versions  and  a  closer 
conformity  to  them.f  There  were  also  among  the  revisers  material 
differences  of  opinion  on  points  of  translation,  to  which  the  Dedica- 
tion to  the  King  alludes,  and  with  scant  courtesy  invokes  the  royal 
support  against  views  adverse  to  those  expressed  in  the  revision. 

Accordingly  the  work  was  not  received  by  the  generation  for  whom 
it  was  prepared,  with  the  unanimity  its  promoters  had  desired.  It 
had  not  yet  fairly  established  itself  as  the  Bible  for  general  use  when 
measures  were  adopted  for  a  new  revision  of  the  Scriptures.  An 
order  for  this  purpose  was  introduced  in  the  Long  Parliament  in 
1652,  and  again  in  1656,  and  was  made  the  subject  of  long  and 
grave  deliberation  by  a  special  committee  of  the  House  of  Commons. f 
In  1659  Robert  Gell  published  an  "  Essay  toward  the  Amendment  of 
the  last  English  Translation  of  the  Bible."  But  owing  to  the  politi- 
cal agitations  of  the  time,  the  design  failed  of  execution.  And  from 
the  restoration  of  the  Stuarts  to  the  first  quarter  of  the  reign  of 
George  III.,  a  period  of  about  one  hundred  and  twenty  years,  the 
minds  of  men  were  so  entirely  occupied  by  great  political  events,  or 
with  purely  secular  and  controversial  literature  that  little  attention  was 

*  "  Your  Majesty  did  never  desist  to  urge  and  excite  those  to  whom  it  was 
committed,  that  the  work  might  be  hastened."     Dedication  to  the  King. 

f  With  regard  to  the  14th  rule  ordained  for  the  guidance  of  King  James'  re- 
visers, Bishop  Ellicott  says  in  his  treatise  on  "  Revision  of  the  New  Testament," 
pp.  So-i  :  "  The  rule  was  good,  but  it  may  be  said  generally  that  it  was  not  very 
carefully  followed,  except  perhaps  in  the  case  of  ihe  Genevan  Version.  Had  they 
followed  it  more  closely,  they  would  have  removed  several  errors  which  they  left 
remaining,  and  have  avoided  some  which  they  introduced." 

\  Journal  of  the  House  of  Commons  ;  and  Whitelocke's  Memorials  of  the 
English  Affairs.     London,  1732,  (Harvard  University  Library). 


260  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

given  to  Biblical  learning.  King  James'  revision  gradually  came  into 
general  use,  and  although  for  nearly  half  a  century  the  Genevan  ver- 
sion competed  with  it  in  the  esteem  of  Puritan  readers,  it  ultimately 
became  the  Bible  of  the  English-speaking  race.* 

But  notwithstanding  its  universally  acknowledged  excellence,  and 
its  general  fidelity  to  revealed  truth,  the  Common  Version  has  not 
held  its  place  without  remonstrance.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say,  that 
for  more  than  two  hundred  years  English  scholars  have  had  one  Bible 
and  the  common  people  another.  This  has  not  been  wholly  the  fault 
of  the  learned,  though  it  must  be  admitted  that  the  natural  conserv- 
atism of  true  learning  has  had  much  to  do  with  it. 

In  the  last  quarter  of  the  eighteenth  century  renewed  interest  in  the 
work  of  Bible  revision  was  shown  by  individual  scholars.  In  1778 
Bishop  Lowth  published  his  metrical  translation  of  Isaiah.  His  notes 
are  valuable,  and  the  translation  elegant,  but  the  liberties  he  took 
with  the  Hebrew  text  make  it  worthless  as  a  revision.  A  little  later, 
Gilbert  Wakefield,  a  distinguished  English  theologian,  a  Dissenter, 
brought  out  translations  of  parts  of  the  New  Testament,  and  in  1791 
the  whole  of  the  New  Testament  with  notes.  Dr.  George  Campbell, 
President  of  Marischal  College,  Aberdeen,  published  "  The  Four 
Gospels,  with  Dissertations  and  Notes"  toward  the  close  of  the  eight- 
eenth century.  His  preliminary  dissertations  and  his  notes  are  still 
useful  ;  but  his  style  of  translation  did  not  commend  the  proposal  for 
a  new  revision.  In  1785-8,  Archbishop  Newcome  published  his 
"  New  Critical  Version  of  the  Twelve  Minor  Prophets  and  Ezekiel  ;" 
in  1792  "  An  Historical  View  of  English  Bible  Translation  ;"  and  in 
1796  "  An  Attempt  toward  Revising  our  English  Translation  of  the 
Greek  Scriptures."  These  works  were  of  value  in  their  time  ;  but  no 
great  progress  had  then  been  made  in  Biblical  scholarship,  and  the 
translations  are  inferior  in  style  to  that  of  the  Common  Version. 

Since  the  beginning  of  the  present  century,  however,  the  advance  in 
all  branches  of  learning  has  been  very  great,  and  the  facilities  for 
undertaking  the  work  of  revision  are  now  abundant.  There  is  little 
probability,  indeed,  of  much  addition  to  them  for  a  long  time  to 
come. 

The  modern  era  of  textual  criticism,  commencing  with  the  labors 
of  Mill  {Greek  Testament,  1707),  continued  by  Bengel  (Greek  Testa- 
ment, 1734),  and  by  Griesbach  (Greek  Testament,  1775-1806,  the  first 


*  It  is  an  interesting  fact  that  many  copies  of  the  Genevan  Version  were 
brought  to  New  England  by  the  Puritans — one  of  which,  a  precious  heirloom,  is 
new  in  the  possession  of  the  Rev.  E.  Kempshall,  DO.,  of  Elizabeth,  N.  J. 


DEMAND    FOR   A    MORE   THOROUGH   REVISION.  261 

strictly  critical  Greek  text),  has  culminated  in  the  labors  of  Teschen- 
dorf and  Tregelles  in  our  own  day.  The  Greek  text  of  the  New  Tes- 
tament, as  known  in  the  time  of  King  James,  was  derived  from  a 
small  number  of  Greek  manuscripts  of  very  modern  date,  which  would 
now  be  regarded  as  of  little  weight  in  determining  the  true  text  of  the 
sacred  writers.  Those  now  known,  early  and  late,  number  little  less 
than  two  thousand.  The  oldest  Greek  manuscript  of  the  New  Tes- 
tament in  England,  the  Alexandrine  MS.,  was  brought  there  in  1628. 
Only  two  ancient  manuscripts,  the  Cambridge  MS.  of  the  Gospels  and 
Acts,  and  the  Claremont  MS.  of  Paul's  Epistles,  were  then  known  t© 
Christian  scholars,  and  these  had  not  been  critically  examined.  The 
celebrated  Vatican  manuscript,  probably  the  oldest  of  the  New  Tes- 
tament in  existence,  was  not  then  accessible  ;  and  the  Sinaitic  manu- 
script, nearly  as  old,  has  been  discovered  within  a  few  years.  The 
important  Ephraem  manuscript  has  but  recently  been  fully  brought  to 
light,  and  was  wholly  unknown  in  the  time  of  King  James.  Other 
ancient  manuscripts  of  the  New  Testament,  or  of  portions  of  it,  have 
recently  been  added  to  them,  till  the  whole  number,  including  parts 
of  manuscripts,   amount  to  nearly  a  hundred. 

These  manuscript  copies  are  only  one  class  of  the  authorities  relied 
on  for  ascertaining  the  true  Greek  text.  Another  class  consists  of 
extant  manuscript  copies  of  numerous  ancient  versions  ;  of  the  Old 
Testament  dating  from  the  first  to  the  third  century  before  Christ, 
and  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments  from  the  second  to  the  eighth 
century  after  Christ.  These  are  often  helpful  in  determining  con- 
tested points  A  third  class  are  the  quotations  from  the  Holy  Scrip- 
tures, found  in  the  writings  of  the  early  Christian  Fathers,  from  the 
second  century  onward  ;  and  these  are  so  numerous,  that  if  the  text  of 
the  New  Testament  were  lost,  it  might  be  almost  wholly  recovered  from 
their  writings.  These  two  classes  of  authorities  were  both  inaccessi- 
ble in  the  time  of  James  ;  either  from  want  of  knowledge  of  the  lan- 
guages in  which  they  were  written,  or  from  want  of  correct  editions  of 
the  text,  which  modern  scholarship  has  supplied. 

The  Jews  have  been  distinguished  for  their'  fidelity  to  the  text  of 
their  Hebrew  Scriptures.  To  them  it  was  a  sacred  trust,  and  a  cher- 
ished birthright.  Their  Scriptures  were  both  the  record  and  the  sole 
relic  of  their  once  proud  nationality.  They  saw  in  them  the  charter 
of  their  rights  and  privileges  as  the  chosen  people  of  the  most  high 
God,  the  Maker  of  heaven  and  earth.  Of  the  many  nations  with 
whom  they  dwelt  apart  while  among  them,  they  saw  none  that  could 
boast  an  origin,  a  history,  and  a  destiny  like  theirs.  Their  present 
humiliation  and  its  causes  they  found  there  described  ;  and  with  them 


262  ENGLISH   BIBLE    TRANSLATION. 

the  prophetic  promise  of  future  restoration  and  triumph.  None  of 
these  nations  could  boast  a  literature  like  theirs  ;  far  surpassing  in 
sublime  eloquence  and  profound  truths  the  highest  efforts  of  human 
genius  and  intellect.  Hence  to  no  other  people  could  its  literature  be 
what  theirs  was  to  them,  and  they  guarded  its  text  with  jealous  and 
ever  watchful  care. 

In  the  early  centuries  of  our  era,  learned  Jewish  scholars  devoted 
their  leisure  to  the  laborious  comparison  of  ancient  manuscript  copies 
of  their  Scriptures,  in  order  to  discover  and  correct  errors  of  tran- 
scription, and  to  ascertain  the  genuine  text  of  the  sacred  writings. 
Their  labors  resulted  in  the  Masoretic  text,  so-called,  leaving  to  mod- 
ern investigators  the  plainer  task  of  conforming  to  it  the  printed  cop- 
ies, under  the  principles  and  rules  by  which  they  were  guided.  This 
task  has  been  prosecuted  with  great  diligence  and  success  ;  first  by 
native  Jews,  and  after  them  by  Christian  scholars,  who  have  entered 
zealously  into  their  labors.* 

The  present  era  of  Hebrew  learning  dates  from  the  issue,  in 
1810-12,  of  Gesenius'  "  Hebrew  and  German  Lexicon,"  and  in  1817, 
of  his  "  System  of  Hebrew  Grammar."  His  labors  were  supple- 
mented by  those  of  a  host  of  eager  toilers  in  Germany,  America  and 
England,  the  results  of  whose  researches  are  now  available  for  provid- 
ing a  more  faithful  English  version  of  the  Jewish  Scriptures.  The 
advance  in  Greek  scholarship  during  the  same  period  has  more  than 
kept  pace  with  that  in  Hebrew.  The  grammars  and  lexicons  of  the 
present  day  are  incomparably  superior  to  any  existing  at  the  time  our 
Common  Version  was  made  ;  and  within  the  last  half  century  equal 
progress  has  been  made  in  the  understanding  of  the  peculiarities  of 
the  Greek  and  the  New  Testament. 

The  recent  discoveries  in  archaeology,  in  geography,  and  in  the 
manners  and  customs  of  the  East  have  also  shed  a  flood  of  light  upon 
the  sacred  page.  Much  that  was  unintelligible  to  the  early  transla- 
tors, through  their  ignorance  of  these  important  sources  of  informa- 
tion, has  been  made  clear  to  the  modern  scholar,  who  is  now  able,  by 
their  help,  to  give  the  exact  sense  of  many  passages  hitherto  obscure 
or  meaningless  to  the  ordinary  reader.  This  is  especially  true  with 
respect  to  the  deciphering  of  the  inscriptions  upon  the  ancient  Assy- 
rian  monuments — a   marvellous  example    of    patient  and    scholarly 

*  The  Jews  can  claim  the  high  honor  of  having  first  employed  the  art  of  print- 
ing to  multiply  copies  of  the  Holy  Scriptures..  After  bringing  out  parts  of  the 
Old  Testament,  the  Psalms  in  1477.  the  five  books  of  Moses  in  14S2,  and  the 
Ilagiographa  in  1487,  they  printed  the  whole  Hebrew  Scriptures  in  1488:  1 
hundred  and  twenty  years  before  the  first  printing  of  the  Greek  New  Testament. 


DEMAND   FOR   A   MORE   THOROUGH    REVISION.  263 

research.  The  translator,  as  well  as  the  interpreter  of  God's  word, 
hnds  in  these  long-buried  records  of  an  extinct  civilization  material 
assistance  in  his  work. 

It  was  in  order  that  the  unlearned  readers  of  the  English  Bible 
might  share  with  scholars  the  benefit  of  these  great  advances  in  Bibli- 
cal scholarship,  that  in  1853  the  American  Bible  Union  was  formed 
with  the  avowed  object  of  securing  a  thorough  revision  of  the  Com- 
mon Version.  The  rules  adopted  for  the  direction  of  the  revisers 
employed  were  as  follows  : 

1.  The  received  Greek  text  critically  edited,  with  known  errors  corrected,  must 
be  followed. 

2.  The  common  English  version  must  be  the  basis  of  revision,  and  only  such 
alterations  must  be  made  as  the  exact  meaning  of  the  text  and  the  existing  state 
of  the  language  may  require. 

3.  The  exact  meaning  of  the  inspired  text,  as  that  text  expressed  it  to  those 
who  understood  the  original  Scriptures  at  the  time  they  were  first  written,  must 
be  given  in  corresponding  words  and  phrases,  so  far  as  they  can  be  found  in 
the  English  language,  with  the  least  possible  obscurity  or  indefiniteness. 

The  application  of  these  rules  is  thus  stated  by  the  reviser  of  the 
Gospel  of  Matthew,  in  his  Introduction  : 

"  The  version  of  the  Gospel  by  Matthew,  here  presented  to  the  public,  is  not  a 
new  translation.  It  is  a  revision  of  the  common  English  version  ;  intended  to 
bring  that  version  to  the  present  standard  of  critical  learning,  correcting  its  inac- 
curacies and  its  obscurities  in  English  expression.  In  all  these  respects,  the 
writer's  object  is  the  same  as  that  of  King  James'  revisers  ;  whose  aim  was  not 
(to  use  their  own  words)  '  to  make  a  new  translation,  nor  yet  to  make  of  a  bad 
one  a  good  one  ;  .  .  .  but  to  make  a  good  one  better,  or  out  of  many  good  ones, 
one  principal  good  one.' 

"  In  regard  to  the  English  style,  the  reviser  has  followed  closely  in  their  foot- 
steps. The  noble  stock  of  English  phraseology,  which  they  found  embodied  in 
the  earlier  versions  and  revisions,  and  which  they  retained  as  the  most  fitting 
vehicle  for  the  inspired  thought  of  the  original,  forms  the  substance  of  the  pres- 
ent revision.  Where  accuracy  or  clearness  demanded  a  change,  he  has  endeav- 
ored to  make  it  in  the  same  tone  and  manner  ;  selecting  the  expression  from  the 
simple,  nervous  Saxon  vocabulary  furnished  by  the  English  Bible  itself  in  its 
successive  revisions,  and  by  the  best  writers  contemporary  with  them." 

The  publications  of  the  Bible  Union  awakened  great  interest  in  this 
country,  where  the  supporters  of  the  Society  were  numbered  by  thou- 
sands ;  and  the  merits  of  the  later  revisions  issued  by  the  Union  were 
acknowledged  by  scholarly  critics  in  America,  England  and  Germany. 
But  the  project  of  revision  was  vehemently  opposed  ;  the  great  body 
of  Christian  people  at  that  time  regarding  it  as  little  short  of  sacrilege 


264  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

to  make  any,  even  the  slightest,  change  in  the  Common  Version.* 
Even  scholars  were  not  agreed  as  to  the  necessity  or  the  propriety  of 
attempting  a  new  revision.  The  publication  of  these  revisions,  how- 
ever, and  their  republication  in  England,  undoubtedly  did  much  to 
further  the  cause  of  Bible  revision  in  both  countries. 

In  1857-58,  the  publication  of  a  revision  of  the  Gospel  of  John, 
the  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  and  the  two  Epistles  to  the  Corinthians,  by 
five  clergymen,  distinguished  scholars  of  the  Church  of  England, 
made  a  deep  impression  on  the  public  mind,  and  prepared  the  way 
for  further  efforts  in  the  same  direction.  These  were  soon  followed 
by  the  learned  and  enthusiastic  treatises  on  the  subject  of  revision  by 
Lightfoot,  Trench  and  Ellicott  (afterward  republished  in  America  by 
their  permission,  with  an  introduction  by  Dr.  Philip  Schaff),  which 
fully  proved  at  once  that  revision  was  a  necessity,  and  that  it  ought 
not  to  be  any  longer  delayed.  Dean  Trench,  in  his  treatise,  published 
in  1859,  found  himself  compelled  to  say  :  "  The  question,  shall  we  or 
shall  we  not  have  a  new  revision  of  the  Authorized  Version,  is  one 
which  is  presenting  itself  more  and  more  familiarly  to  the  minds  of 
men." 

Moved  by  these  and  similar  discussions  of  the  subject,  the  Convo- 
cation of  Canterbury  at  length  took  decisive  action  for  a  revision  of 
the  common  version. \  At  its  session  of  May  6,  1870,  a  committee 
which  consisted  of  eight  bishops,  the  late  Dean  Alford,  Dean  Stanley, 
and  several  other  dignitaries,  reported  : 

1.  That  it  is  desirable  that  a  revision  of  the  Authorized  Version  of  the  Holy 
Scriptures  be  undertaken. 

2.  That  the  revision  be  so  conducted  as  to  comprise  both  marginal  renderings 
and  such  emendations  as  it  may  be  found  necessary  to  insert  in  the  text  of  the 
Authorized  Version. 

*  A  striking  illustratipn  of  the  popular  feeling  then  prevalent  is  afforded  by  the 
signal  failure  of  the  effort  to  improve  the  common  version  made  by  the  American 
Bible  Society  in  1S51.  "  A  committee  appointed  by  the  Society  in  1S4S,"  says 
Dr.  Schaff  in  his  introduction  to  "  The  Revision  of  the  New  Testament,"  "  found 
many  errors  and  inconsistencies  in  the  best  English  editions.  .  ■  .  The  Com- 
mittee on  Versions  (including  such  scholars  as  Drs.  Edward  Robinson.  Samuel 
H.  Turner,  and  John  M'Clintock)  spent  three  years  of  labor  and  pains  in  correct- 
ing misprints,  and  improving  the  orthography,  capital  letters,  words  in  italics, 
punctuation,  and  headings  of  columns  and  chapters.  But  the  American  Bible 
Society  was  induced,  by  a  majority  of  its  managers,  to  cancel  the  revised  edition 
thus  prepared  (1852);  on  the  ground  of  alleged  want  of  constitutional  authority, 
and  popular  dissatisfaction  with  a  number  of  the  changes  made,  especially  in  the 
headings  of  chapters,  as  substituting  Messiah  and  Sion,  in  the  Old  Testament,  for 
Christ  and  Church," 

f  For  what  follows  see  Dr.  Schaff's  Revision  of  the  New  Testament. 


DEMAND    FOR   A    MORE   THOROUGH    REVISION.  265 

3.  That  in  the  above  resolutions  we  do  not  contemplate  any  new  translation  of 
the  Bible,  or  any  alteration  of  the  language,  except  where,  in  the  judgment  of 
the  most  competent  scholars,  such  change  is  necessary. 

4.  That  in  such  necessary  changes,  the  style  of  the  language  employed  in  the 
existing  version  be  closely  followed. 

5.  That  it  is  desirable  that  Convocation  should  nominate  a  body  of  its  own 
members  to  undertake  the  work  of  revision,  who  shall  be  at  liberty  to  invite  the 
co-operation  of  any  eminent  for  scholarship,  to  whatever  nation  or  religious  body 
they  may  belong. 

The  report  was  accepted  unanimously  by  the  upper  House,  and  by 
a  great  majority  of  the  Lower  House.  A  committee  was  also 
appointed,  consisting  of  eight  bishops  and  eight  presbyters,  to  take  the 
necessary  steps  for  carrying  out  the  resolutions.  At  their  first  meet- 
ing, two  companies  of  revisers  were  appointed  from  among  the  princi- 
pal dignitaries  of  the  English  Church  to  have  charge  respectively  of 
the  revision  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments.  Distinguished  scholars 
of  the  English  Church,  of  the  Catholic  Church,  and  of  the  Protestant 
nonconformist  bodies  in  England,  were  invited  to  joim  in  the  work. 

The  committee  also,  at  the  same  session,  adopted  the  following 
rules,  to  govern  both  companies  in  the  execution  of  the  work  : 

"  1.  To  introduce  as  few  alterations  as  possible  into  the  text  of  the  Authorized 
Version,  consistently  with  faithfulness. 

"  2.  To  limit  as  far  as  possible,  the  expression  of  such  alterations  to  the  lan- 
guage of  the  Authorized  and  earlier  English  Versions. 

"  3.  Each  company  to  go  twice  over  the  portion  to  be  revised,  once  provi- 
sionally, the  second  time  finally,  and  on  principles  of  voting  as  hereinafter  is  pro- 
vided. 

"4.  That  the  text  to  be  adopted  be  that  for  which  the  evidence  is  decidedly 
preponderating  ;  and  that  when  the  text  so  adopted  differs  from  that  from  which 
the  Authorized  Version  was  made,  the  alteration  be  indicated  in  the  margin. 

"  5.  To  make  or  retain  no  change  in  the  text  on  the  second  final  revision  by 
each  company,  except  two-thirds  of  those  present  approve  of  the  same,  but  on 
the  first  revision  to  decide  by  simple  majorities. 

"  6.  In  every  case  of  proposed  alteration  that  may  have  given  rise  to  discus- 
sion, to  defer  the  voting  thereupon  till  the  next  meeting,  whensoever  the  same 
shall  be  required  by  one-third  of  those  present  at  the  meeting,  such  intended  vote 
to  be  announced  in  the  notice  for  the  next  meeting. 

"  7.  To  revise  the  headings  of  chapters  and  pages,  paragraphs,  italics,  and 
punctuation. 

"  8.  To  refer,  on  the  part  of  each  company,  when  considered  desirable,  to 
divines,  scholars,  and  literary  men,  whether  at  home  or  abroad,  for  their 
opinions." 

The  fifth  resolution  of  the  Convocation  of  Canterbury  empowered 
the  committee  "  to  invite  the  co-operation  of  any  eminent  for  scholar- 
ship, to  whatever  nation   or  religious  body  they  may  belong."     In 


266  ENGLISH    BIBLE   TRANSLATION. 

accordance  with  this  resolution,  Dr.  Joseph  Angus,  President  of  Re- 
gent's Park  College,  London,  and  one  of  the  English  revisers,  was 
deputed  to  proceed  to  America  for  the  purpose  of  securing  the  aid  of 
American  scholars  in  the  prosecution  of  the  work.  Dr.  Angus  arrived 
in  New  York  in  August,  1870.  At  his  request,  Dr.  Philip  Schaff  pre- 
pared a  draft  of  rules  for  co-operation  and  a  list  of  names  of  Biblical 
scholars  who  would,  in  his  judgment,  best  represent  the  different 
denominations  and  literary  institutions  of  the  United  States.  The 
suggestions  were  submitted  to  the  British  committee,  and  substantially 
approved.  Dr.  Schaff  was  empowered  to  select  and  invite  scholars 
from  non-Episcopal  churches  ;  and  afterward,  when  the  Bishops  of 
the  American  Episcopal  Church  declined  to  nominate  members,  to  rill 
out  the  list  of  Episcopal  scholars. 

In  May,  1881,  eleren  years  after  the  adoption  of  the  resolution  by 
the  Convocation  of  Canterbury  approving  a  revision  of  the  English 
Scriptures,  the  New  Testament  was  given  to  the  public. 


APPENDIX 


I.    Specimens  of  the  early  English  Versions. 
II.    The  Immaculate  Conception. 
III.    The  Soldiers'  Bible. 

Note.— The  Specimens  of  the  early  Versions  in  Part  I.  are  given  without 
change,  except  in  the  orthography,  which  is  modernized.  In  Part  II.  a  few  addi- 
tional specimens  are  given,  as  a  matter  of  curiosity,  with  the  original  spelling 
retained.  These  are  copied  from  very  early  editions  ;  with  the  exception  of  the 
specimens  of  Tyndale's  New  Testament,  which  are  from  Offor's  reprint  of  the 
first  edition,  1526,  and  of  Coverdale's  Bible,  which  are  taken  from  Bagster's 
modern  reprint. 


268  APPENDIX    I. 

APPENDIX     I . 

SPECIMENS   OF    EARLY    ENGLISH    VERSION'S. 

PART    I. 

WTCKLIFFE.  MATTHEW'S   (TYNDALE). 

Exodus  xx.  1-17.  Exodus  xx.  1-17. 

And  the  Lord  spake  all  these  words  :  And  God  spake  all  these  words  and 
I  am  thy  Lord  God,  that  led  thee  out  of  said  :  I  am  the  Lord  thy  God,  which 
the  land  of  Egypt,  from  the  house  of  have  brought  thee  out  of  the  land  of 
servage.  Thou  shalt  not  have  alien  Egypt,  and  out  of  the  house  of  bondage, 
gods  before  me.  Thou  shalt  not  make  Thou  shalt  have  none  other  Gods  in  my 
to  thee  a  graven  image,  neither  any  like-  sight.  Thou  shalt  make  thee  no  graven 
ness  of  thing  which  is  in  heaven  above,  image,  neither  any  similitude  that  is  in 
and  which  is  in  earth  beneath,  neither  heaven  above,  either  in  the  earth  be- 
of  the  things,  that  be  in  waters  under  neath,  or  in  the  water  that  is  beneath 
earth  ;  thou  shalt  not  herye  [honor]  tho;  the  earth.  See  that  thou  neither  bow 
neither  thou  shalt  worship  ;  for  I  am  thy  thyself  unto  them  neither  serve  them  : 
Lord  God,  a  strong  jealous  lover  ;  and  for  I  the  Lord  thy  Gud  am  a  jealous 
I  visit  the  wickedness  of  faders  into  the  God,  and  visit  the  sin  of  the  fathers 
third  and  the  fourth  generation  of  them  upon  the  children  unto  the  third  and 
that  haten  me,  and  I  do  mercy  in  to  a  fourth  generation  o(  them  that  hate  me, 
thousand  to  them  that  loven  me  and  and  yet  show  mercy  unto  thousands 
keep  mine  hests.  Thou  shalt  not  take  among  them  that  love  me  and  keep  my 
in  vain  the  name  of  thy  Lord  God,  for  commandments. 

the  Lord  shall  not  have  him  guiltless  Thou  shalt  not  take  the  name  of  the 
that  takeih  in  vain  the  name  of  his  Lord  thy  God  in  vain,  for  the  Lord  will 
Lord  God.  Have  thou  mind  that  thou  not  hold  him  guiltless  that  taketh  his 
hallow  the  day  of  the  sabbat  ;  in  six  name  in  vain.  Remember  the  Sabbath 
days  thou  shalt  work  and  shalt  do  all  thy  day  that  thou  sanctify  it.  Six  days 
works  ;  forsooth  in  the  seventh  day  is  mayst  thou  labor  and  do  all  that  thou 
the  sabbat  of  thy  Lord  God  ;  thou  shalt  hast  to  do  :  but  the  seventh  day  is  the 
not  do  any  work,  thou,  and  thy  son,  and  Sabbath  of  the  Lord  thy  God  ;  in  it  thou 
thy  daughter,  and  thy  servant,  and  thine  shalt  do  no  manner  work  ;  neither  thou 
handmaid,  thy  work  beast,  and  the  nor  thy  son,  nor  thy  daughter,  neither 
comeiing  [stranger]  that  is  witnin  thy  thy  man  servant,  nor  thy  maid  servant, 
gates  ;  for  in  six  days  God  made  heaven  neither  thy  cattle,  neither  yet  the 
and  earth,  the  sea,  and  all  things  that  stranger  that  is  within  thy  gates.     For 

in  six  days  the  Lord  made  both  heaven 

GENEVAN.     Exodus  xx.  1--17. 
Then  God  spake  all  these  words,  saying, 

2.  I  am  the  Lord  thy  God,  which  have  brought  thee  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt, 
out  of  the  house  of  bondage. 

3.  Thou  shalt  have  none  other  gods  before  me. 

4.  Thou  shalt  make  thee  no  graven  image,  neither  any  similitude  [of  things] 
that  are  in  heaven  above,  neither  that  are  in  the  earth  beneath,  nor  that  are  in 
the  waters  under  the  earth. 

5.  Thou  shalt  not  bow  down  to  them,  neither  serve  them  ;  for  I  am  the  Lord 
thy  God,  a  jealous  God,  visiting  the  iniquity  of  the  fathers  upon  the  children, 
upon  the  third  [generation]  and  upon  the  fourth  of  them  that  hate  me  ; 

6.  And  showing  mercy  unto  thousands  to  them  that  love  me,  and  keep  my 
commandments. 

7.  Thou  shalt  not  take  the  name  of  the  Lord  thy  God  in  vain  ;  for  the  Lord 
will  not  hold  him  guiltless  that  taketh  his  name  in  vain.       , 

8.  Remember  the  Sabbath  day,  to  keep  it  holy. 

9.  Six  days  shalt  thou  labor,  and  do  all  thy  work. 

10.  But  the  seventh  day  [is]  the  Sabbath  of  the  Lord  thy  God  ;  [in  it]  thou  shalt 
not  do  any  work,  thou,  nor  thy  son,  nor  thy  daughter,  thy  man  servant,  nor  thy 
maid,  nor  thy  beast,  nor  thy  stranger  that  is  within  thy  gates. 

11.  For  in  six  days  the  Lord  made  the  heaven  and  the  earth,  the  sea,  and  all 


APPENDIX   I.    (CONTINUED.)  269 

COVERDALE.  CRANMER. 

Exodus  xx.  1-17.  Exodus  xx.  1-17. 

And  the  Lord  spake  all  these  words,  And  God  spake  all  these  words  and 
and  said  :  I  am  the  Lord  thy  God,  which  said:  I  am  the  Lord  thy  God,  which 
have  brought  thee  out  of  the  land  of  have  brought  thee  out  of  the  land  of 
Egypt  from  the  house  of  bondage.  Egypt,    out    of   the    house    of   bondage. 

Thou  shalt  have  none  other  Gods  in  Thou  shalt  have  none  other  Gods  in  my 
my  sight.  Thou  shalt  make  thee  no  sight.  Thou  shalt  make  thee  no  graven 
graven  image,  nor  any  similitude,  image,  neither  any  similitude  that  is  in 
neither  of  it  that  is  above  in  heaven,  nor  heaven  above,  either  in  the  earth  be- 
of  it  that  is  beneath  upon  earth,  neither  neath,  or  in  the  waters  under  the  earth, 
of  it  that  is  in  the  water  under  the  earth.  Thou  shalt  not  worship  them,  neither 
Worship  them  not,  and  serve  them  not  :  serve  them  ;  for  I  the  Lord  thy  God  am 
for  I  the  Lord  thy  God  am  a  jealous  a  jealous  God,  and  visit  the  sin  of  the 
God,  visiting  the  sin  of  the  fathers  upon  fathers  upon  the  children  unto  the  third 
the  children,  unto  the  third  and  fourth  and  fourth  generation  of  them  that  hate 
generation  of  them  that  hate  me  ;  and  me  ;  and  show  mercy  unto  thousands  in 
do  mercy  upon  many  thousands  that  them  that  love  me  and  keep  my  com- 
love  me  and  keep  my  commandments.      mandments. 

Thou  shalt  not  take  the  name  of  the  Thou  shalt  not  take  the  name  of  the 
Lord  thy  God  in  vain.  For  the  Lord  Lord  thy  God  in  vain,  for  the  Lord  will 
shall  not  hold  him  Unguilty  that  taketh  not  hold  him  guiltless  that  taketh  his 
his  name  in  vain.  name  in  vain.     Remember  the  Sabbath 

Remember  the  Sabbath  day  that  thou  day  that  thou  sanctify  it.  Six  days  shalt 
sanctify  it.  Six  days  shalt  thou  labor  thou  labor  and  do  all  that  thou  hast  to 
and  do  all  thy  work  :  But  upon  the  sev-  do  ;  but  the  seventh  day  is  the  Sabbath 
enth  day  is  the  Sabbath  of  the  Lord  thy  of  the  Lord  thy  God  ;  in  it  thou  shalt  do 
God  ;  thou  shalt  do  no  manger  of  work  no  manner  of  work,  thou,  and  thy  son, 
in  it,  neither  thou,  nor  thy  son,  nor  thy  and  thy  daughter,  thy  man  servant,  and 
daughter,  nor  thy  servant,  nor  thy  maid,  thy  maid  servant,  thy  cattle,  and  the 
nor  thy  cattle,  nor  thy  stranger  that  is  stranger  that  is  within  thy  gates.  For 
within  thy  gates.  For  in  six  days  the  in  six  days  the  Lord  made  heaven  and 
Lord  made  heaven  and  earth,  and  the  earth,  the  sea,  and  all  that  in  them  is, 
sea  and  all  that  therein   is,  and  rested 


BISHOPS'.     Exodus  xx.  1-17. 

And  God  spake  all  these  words,  and  said, 

2.  I  am  the  Lord  thy  God,  which  have  brought  thee  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt, 
out  of  the  house  of  bondage. 

3.  Thou  shalt  have  none  other  Gods  in  my  sight. 

4.  Thou  shalt  make  thee  no  graven  image,  neither  the  likeness  of  anything  that 
is  in  heaven  above,  either  in  the  earth  beneath,  nor  in  the  waters  under  the  earth. 

5.  Thou  shalt  not  bow  down  to  them,  nor  worship  them  ;  for  I  the  Lord  thy  God 
am  a  jealous  God,  and  visit  the  sin  of  the  fathers  upon  the  children,  unto  the 
third  and  fourth  generation  of  them  that  hate  me  ; 

6.  And  show  mercy  unto  thousands  in  them  that  love  me,  and  keep  my  com- 
mandments. .„ 

7.  Thou  shalt  not  take  the  name  of  the  Lord  thy  God  in  vain  :  for  the  Lord  will 
not  hold  him  guiltless  that  taketh  his  name  in  vain. 

8.  Remember  the  Sabbath  day,  that  thou  sanctify  it. 

9.  Six  davs  shalt  thou  labor,  and  do  all  that  thou  hast  to  do.  _ 

10.  But  the  seventh  day  is  the  Sabbath  of  the  Lord  thy  God  ;  in  it  thou  shall 
do  no  manner  of  work,  thou  and  thy  son  and  thy  daughter,  thy  man  servant,  and 
thy  maid  servant,  thy  cattle,  and  the  stranger  that  is  within  thy  gates  ;  . 

11.  For  in  six  days  the  Lord  made  heaven  and  earth,  the  sea,  and  all  that  in 


270  APPENDIX    I.    (CONTINUED.) 

WICKLIFFE.  MATTHEW'S   (TYNDALE). 

ben   in   tho,  and    rested   in   the  seventh  and  earth,  and  the  sea,  and   all   that  in 
day  ;  herefor  the   Lord  blessed  the  day  them   is,    and   rested  the   seventh   day  : 
of  the  sabbat  and    hallowed   it.      Honor  wherefore  the  Lord  blessed  the  Sabbath 
thy  fader  and  thy  moder,  that  thou  be  day  and  hallowed  it.     Honor  thy  father 
long  living  on  the  lond,  which  the  Lord  and  thy  mother,  that  thy  days  may  be 
thy  God  shall  give  to  thee.     Thou  shalt  long  in  the  land  which  the  Lord  thy  God 
not   slay.     Thou   shalt   do    no    lechery,   giveth  thee. 
Thou  shalt  do  no  theft.     Thou  shalt  not       Thou  shalt  not  kill, 
speak  false  witnessing  against  thy  neigh-       Thou  shalt  not  break  wedlock, 
bor.     Thou  shalt  not  covet  the  house  of       Thou  shalt  not  steal, 
thy  neighbor,  neither  thou  shalt  desire       Thou    shalt    bear    no    false    witness 
his  wife,  not  servant,  not  handmaid,  not  against  thy  neighbor. 
ox,  not  ass,  neither  all  things  than  ben       Thou   shalt   not  covet   thy  neighbor's 
his.  house  ;    neither  shalt  covet    thy  neigh- 

bor's wife,   his  man  servant,  his  maid, 
his  ox,  his  ass,  or  aught  that  is  his. 

GENEVAN. 

that  in  them  is,  and  rested  the  seventh  day  ;  therefore  the  Lord  blessed  the  Sab- 
bath day,  and  hallowed  it. 

12.  Honor  thy  father  and  thy  mother,  that  thy  days  may  be  prolonged  upon 
the  land,  which  the  Lord  thy  God  giveth  thee. 

13.  Thou  shalt  not  kill, 

14.  Thou  shalt  not  commit  adultery. 

15.  Thou  shalt  not  steal. 

16.  Thou  shalt  not  bear  false  witness  against  thy  neighbor. 

17.  Thou  shalt  not  covet  thy  neighbor's  house,  neither  shalt  thou  covet  thy 
neighbor's  wife,  nor  his  man  servant,  nor  his  maid,  nor  his  ox,  nor  his  ass, 
neither  anything  that  is  thy  neighbor's. 


APPENDIX    I.    (CONTINUED.)  27 1 

COVERDALE.  CRANMER. 

upon    the   seventh    day  ;    therefore    the  and   rested  the  seventh  day,   wherefore 

Lord  blessed  the   seventh   day  and  hal-  the  Lord  blessed  the    Sabbath  day  and 

lowed  it.  hallowed  it. 

Honor   thy   father   and    thy    mother,  Honor  thy  father  and  thy  mother,  that 

that  thou  mayest  live  long  in  the  land,  thy  days  may  be  long  in  the  land  which 

which  the  Lord  thy  God  shall  give  thee,  the  Lord  thy  God  giveth  thee. 

Thou  shalt  not  kill.  Thou  shalt  not  kill. 

Thou  shalt  not  break  wedlock.  Thou  shalt  not  break  wedlock. 

Thou  shalt  not  steal.  Thou  shalt  not  steal. 

Thou    shalt     bear    no    false    witness  Thou    shalt    not    bear    false    witness 

against  thy  neighbor.  against  thy  neighbor. 

Thou   shalt   not  lust  after  thy  neigh-  Thou  shalt  not  covet  thy  neighbor's 

bor's  house.     Thou  shalt  not  lust  after  house  :    neither    shalt    thou    covet    thy 

thy  neighbor's  wife,  nor  his  servant,  nor  neighbor's  wife,  or  his  man  servant,  or 

his  maid,  nor  his  ox,  nor  his  ass,  nor  all  his  maid,  or  his  ox,  or  his  ass,  or  what- 

that  thy  neighbor  hath.  soever  thy  neighbor  hath. 

BISHOPS'. 

them  is,  and  rested  the  seventh  day  ;  wherefore  the  Lord  blessed  the  seventh  day, 
and  hallowed  it. 

12.  Honor  thy  father  and  thy  mother  ;  that  thy  days  may  be  long  in  the  land 
which  the  Lord  thy  God  giveth  thee. 

13.  Thou  shalt  not  kill. 

14.  Thou  shalt  not  commit  adultery. 

15.  Thou  shalt  not  steal. 

16.  Thou  shalt  not  bear  false  witness  against  thy  neighbor. 

17.  Thou  shalt  not  covet  thy  neighbor's  house,  neither  shalt  thou  covet  thy 
neighbor's  wife,  nor  his  man  servant,  nor  his  maid,  nor  his  ox,  nor  his  ass,  nor 
anything  that  is  thy  neighbor's. 


272  APPENDIX    I.    (CONTINUED.) 

WICKLIFFE.  TYNDALE. 

Luke  vii.  36-50.  Luke  vii.  36-50. 

But  one  of  the  Pharisees  prayed  And  one  of  the  Pharisees  desired  him 
Jesus,  that  he  should  eat  with  him.  And  that  he  would  eat  with  him.  And  he 
he  entereiJ  into  the  house  of  the  Phari-  came  into  the  Pharisee's  house  and  sat 
see,  and  sat  at  the  meat.  And  lo  !  a  down  to  meat.  And  behold  a  woman 
sinful  woman,  that  was  in  the  city,  as  in  that  city  which  was  a  sinner,  as  soon 
she  knew  that  Jesus  sat  at  the  meat  in  as  she  knew  that  Jesus  sat  at  meat  in  the 
the  house  of  the  Pharisee,  she  brought  Pharisee's  house,  she  brought  an  alabas- 
an  alabaster  box  of  ointment  ;  and  she  ter  box  of  ointment,  and  she  stood  at  his 
stood  behind  besides  his  feet,  and  began  feet  behind  him  weeping,  and  began  to 
to  moist  his  feet  with  tears,  and  wiped  wash  his  feet  with  tears,  and  did  wipe 
with  the  hairs  of  her  head,  and  kissed  them  with  the  hairs  of  her  head,  and 
his  feet,  and  anointed  with  ointment,  kissed  his  feet,  and  anointed  them  with 
And  the  Pharisee  seeing,  that  had  clepid  ointment. 

[called,  bidden]  him,  said  within  him-  When  the  Pharisee  which  bade  him 
self,  saying.  If  this  were  a  prophet,  he  to  his  house,  saw  that,  he  spake  within 
should  wite  [know]  who  and  what  man-  himself,  saying  :  If  this  man  were  a  pro- 
ner  woman  it  were  that  toucheth  him,  phet,  he  would  surely  have  known  who 
for  she  is  a  sinful  woman.  And  Jesus  and  what  manner  woman  this  is  which 
answered  and  said  to  him,  Simon,  I  have  toucheth  him,  for  she  is  a  sinner.  And 
something  to  say  to  thee.  And  he  said,  Jesus  answered  and  said  unto  him  : 
Master,  say  thou.  And  he  answered  ;  Simon,  I  have  somewhat  to  say  unto 
Two  debtors  were  to  one  loaner  :  and  thee.  And  he  said  :  Master,  say  on. 
one  owed  five  hundred  pence,  and  the  There  was  a  certain  lender  which  had 
other  fifty  ;  but  when  they  hadden  not  two  debtors  ;  the  one  owed  five  hundred 
whereof  they  shoulden  geld  [pay],  he  pence,  and  the  other  fifty.  When  they 
forgave  to  both.  Who  then  loveth  him  had  nothing  to  pay,  he  forgave  them 
more  ?  Simon  answered  and  said,  I  both.  Which  of  them,  tell  me,  will  love 
guess,  that  he  to  whom  he  forgave  more,  him  most  ?  Simon  answered  and  said  : 
And  he  answered  to  him,  Thou  hast  I  suppose  that  he  to  whom  he  forgave 
deemed  rightly.  And  he  turned  to  the  most.  And  he  said  unto  him,  Thou 
woman,  and  said  to  Simon,  Seest  thou  hast  truly  judged. 

this  woman  ?  I  entered  into  thine  And  he  turned  to  the  woman,  and  said 
house,  thou  gave  no  water  to  my  feet  ;  unto  Simon  :  Seest  thou  this  woman  ? 
but  this  hath  moisted  my  feet  with  tears,    I  entered  into  thy  house,  and  thou  gavest 

me  no  water  to  my  feet  ;  but  she  hath 

GENEVAN.     Luke  vii.  36-50. 

36.  And  one  of  the  Pharisees  desired  him  that  he  would  eat  with  hirn.  And  he 
went  into  the  Pharisees  house,  and  sat  down  at  table. 

37.  And  behold,  a  woman  in  the  city,  which  was  a  sinner,  when  she  knew  that 
Jesus  sat  at  table  in  the  Pharisees  house,  she  brought  a  box  of  ointment  : 

38.  And  she  stood  at  his  feet  behind  him  weeping,  and  began  to  wash  his  feet 
with  tears,  and  did  wipe  them  with  the  hairs  of  her  head,  and  kissed  his  feet,  and 
anointed  them  with  the  ointment. 

39.  Now  when  the  Pharisee  which  bade  him,  saw  it,  he  spake  within  himself 
saying,  If  this  man  were  a  prophet,  he  would  surely  have  known  who  and  what 
manner  of  woman  this  is  which  toucheth  him,  for  she  is  a  sinner. 

40.  And  Jesus  answered  and  said  unto  him  :  Simon,  I  have  somewhat  to  say 
unio  thee.     And  he  said,  Master,  say  on. 

41.  There  was  a  certain  lender  which  had  two  debtors  :  the  one  owed  five  hun- 
dred pence,  and  the  other  fifty. 

42.  When  they  had  nothing  to  pay.  he  forgave  them  both.  Which  of  them 
therefore,  tell  [me]  will  love  him  most? 

43.  Simon  answered  and  said,  I  suppose  that  he  to  whom  he  forgave  most. 
And  he  said  unto  him  :  Thou  hast  truly  judged. 

44.  Then  he  turned  to  the  woman,  and  said  unto  Simon,  Seest  thou  this 
woman  ?     I  entered  into  thine  house,  and  thou  gavest  me  no  water  to  my  feet  : 


APPENDIX   I.    (CONTINUED.) 


■/5 


COVERDALE. 

Luke  vii.  36-50. 

And  one  of  the  Pharisees  desired  him 
that  he  would  eat  with  him.  And  he 
went  into  the  Pharisees  house,  and  sat 
him  down  at  the  table.  And  behold, 
there  was  in  the  city  a  woman  which  was 
a  sinner.  When  she  knew  that  Jesus  sat 
at  the  table  in  the  Pharisees  house,  she 
brought  a  box  with  ointment,  and  stood 
behind  at  his  feet  and  wept,  and  began 
to  water  his  feet  with  tears,  and  to  dry 
them  with  the  hairs  of  her  head,  and 
kissed  his  feet,  and  anointed  them  with 
ointment. 

But  when  the  Pharisee  which  had 
called  him  saw  that,  he  spake  within 
himself  and  said  :  If  this  man  were  a 
prophet,  he  would  know  who  and  what 
manner  of  woman  this  is  that  toucheth 
him,  for  she  is  a  sinner.  And  Jesus 
answered  and  said  unto  him  :  Simon,  I 
have  somewhat  to  say  unto  thee.  He 
said  :  Master,  say  on.  A  certain  lender 
had  two  debtors,  the  one  owed  five  hun- 
dred pence,  the  other  fifty  :  but  when 
they  had  nothing  to  pay,  he  forgave  them 
both.  Tell  me  which  of  them  will  love 
him  most  ?  Simon  answered  and  said  : 
He,  I  suppose,  to  whom  he  forgave 
most.  Then  said  he  unto  him  :  Thou 
hast  judged  right. 

And  he  turned  him  to  the  woman,  and 
said  unto  Simon  :  Seest  thou  this 
woman  ?  I  am  come  into  thine  house, 
thou  hast  given  me  no  water  unto  my 


CRANMER. 
Luke  vii.  36-50. 

And  one  of  the  Pharisees  desired  him 
that  he  would  eat  with  him.  And  he 
went  into  the  Pharisees  house,  and  sat 
down  to  meat.  And  behold  a  woman  in 
that  city  (which  was  a  sinner)  as  soon  as 
she  knew  that  Jesus  sat  at  meat  in  the 
Pharisees  house,  she  brought  an  ala- 
baster box  of  ointment,  and  stood  at  his 
feet  behind  him  weeping,  and  began  to 
wash  his  feet  with  tears,  and  did  wipe 
them  with  the  hairs  of  her  head,  and 
kissed  his  feet,  and  anointed  them  with 
the  ointment.  When  the  Pharisee  which 
had  bidden  him  saw,  he  spake  within 
himself,  saying  :  If  this  man  were  a 
prophet,  he  would  surely  know  who  and 
what  manner  of  woman  this  is  that 
touched  him,  for  she  is  a  sinner.  And 
Jesus  answered  and  said  unto  him  : 
Simon,  I  have  somewhat  to  say  unto 
thee.  And  he  said,  Master,  say  on. 
There  was  a  certain  lender  which  had 
two  debtors,  the  one  owed  five  hundred 
pence,  and  the  other  fifty.  When  they 
had  nothing  to  pay,  he  forgave  them 
both.  Tell  me  therefore,  which  of  them 
will  love  him  most  ?  Simon  answered 
and  said  :  I  suppose  that  he  to  whom 
he  forgave  most.  And  he  said  unto 
him  :  Thou  hast  truly  judged. 

And  he  turned  to  the  woman,  and  said 
unto  Simon  :  Seest  thou  this  woman  ? 
I  entered  into  thy  house,  thou  gavest  me 
no   water   for   my   feet ;    but   She   hath 


BISHOPS'.     Luke  vii.  36-50. 


36.  And  one  of  the  Pharisees  desired  him  that  he  would  eat  with  him.  And  he 
went  into  the  Pharisees  house  and  sat  down  to  meat. 

37.  And  behold,  a  woman  in  that  city,  which  was  a  sinner,  when  she  knew  that 
Jesus  sat  at  meat  in  the  Pharisees  house,  she  brought  an  alabaster  box  of  oint- 
ment : 

38.  And  stood  at  his  feet  behind  him  weeping,  and  began  to  wash  his  feet  with 
tears,  and  did  wipe  them  clean  with  the  hairs  of  her  head,  and  all  to  kissed  his 
feet,  and  anointed  them  with  the  ointment. 

39.  When  the  Pharisee  which  had  bidden  him,  saw  it,  he  spake  within  himself, 
saying  ■  If  this  man  were  a  prophet,  he  would  surely  know  who  and  what  manner 
of  woman  is  this  that  toucheth  him  ;  for  she  is  a  sinner. 

40.  And  Jesus  answering  said  unto  him  :  Simon,  I  have  somewhat  to  say  unto 
thee.     And  he  saith,  Master,  say  on. 

41.  There  was  a  certain  lender  which  had  two  debtors  ;  the  one  owed  five  hun- 
dred pence,  and  the  other  fifty. 

42.  When  they  had  nothing  to  pay,  he  forgave  them  both.  Tell  me,  therefore, 
which  of  them  will  love  him  most  ? 

43.  Simon  answered  and  said  :  I  suppose  that  he  to  whom  he  forgave  most. 
And  he  said  unto  him,  Thou  hast  truly  judged. 

44.  And   he  turned   to   the  woman  and   said   unto    Simon  :    Seest    thou   this 


2/4  APPENDIX    I.    (CONTINUED.) 

WICKLIFFE.  TYNDALE. 

and  wiped  with  her  hairs.  Thou  hast  washed  my  feet  with  tears,  and  wiped 
not  given  to  me  a  kiss  ;  but  this,  sithen  them  with  the  hairs  of  her  head.  Thou 
she  entered,  ceased  not  to  kiss  my  feet,  gavest  me  no  kiss  :  but  she,  since  the 
Thou  anointedst  not  mine  head  with  oil  ;  time  I  came  in,  hath  not  ceased  to  kiss 
but  this  anointed  my  feet  with  ointment,  my  feet.  Mine  head  with  oil  thou  didst 
For  the  which  thing  I  say  to  thee,  many  not  anoint  :  and  she  hath  anointed  my 
sins  ben  forgiven  to  her,  for  she  hath  feet  with  ointment.  Wherefore  I  say 
loved  much  ;  and  to  whom  is  less  for-  unto  thee  ;  Many  sins  are  forgiven  her, 
given,  he  loveth  less.  And  Jesus  said  because  she  leved  much.  To  whom  less 
to  her,  Thy  sins  be  forgiven  to  thee,  is  forgiven,  the  same  doth  less  love. 
And  they  that  satten  together  at  the  And  he  said  unto  her,  Thy  sins  are 
meat,  begun  to  say  within  themself,  Who  forgiven  thee.  And  they  that  sat  at 
is  this  that  forgiveth  sins  ?  But  he  said  meat  with  him,  began  to  say  within 
to  the  woman,  Thy  faith  hath  made  thee  themselves  :  Who  is  this  which  forgiveth 
safe  ;  go  thou  in  peace.  sins  also  ?      And  he  said  to  the  woman  : 

Thy  faith  hath  saved  thee  ;  Go  in  peace. 

GENEVAN. 

but  she  hath  washed  my  feet  with  tears,  and  wiped  them  with  the  hairs  of  her 
head. 

45.  Thou  gavest  me  no  kiss  :  but  she,  since  the  time  I  came  in,  hath  not  ceased 
to  kiss  my  feet. 

46.  Mine  head  with  oil  thou  didst  not  anoint  :  but  she  hath  anointed  my  feet 
with  ointment. 

47.  Wherefore  I  say  unto  thee  :  Many  sins  are  forgiven  her  ;  for  she  loved 
much.     To  whom  a  little  is  forgiven,  he  doth  love  a  little. 

48.  And  he  said  unto  her,  Thy  sins  are  forgiven  thee. 

49.  And  they  that  sat  at  table  with  him,  began  to  say  within  themselves  :  Who 
is  this  that  even  forgiveth  sins  ? 

50.  And  he  said  to  the  woman  ;  Thy  faith  hath  saved  thee  :  go  in  peace. 


APPENDIX    I.    (CONTINUED.)  2/5 

COVERDALE.  CRANMER. 

feet ;  but  she  hath  watered  my  feet  with  washed  my  feet  with  tears,  and  wiped 
tears,  and  dried  them  with  trie  hairs  of  them  with  the  hairs  of  her  head.  Thou 
her  head.  Thou  hast  given  me  no  kiss,  gavest  me  no  kiss  :  but  she,  since  the 
but  she,  since  the  time  she  came  in.  hath  lime  I  came  in,  hath  not  ceased  to  kiss 
not  ceased  to  kiss  my  feet.  Thou  hast  my  feet.  Mine  head  with  oil  thou  didst 
not  anointed  my  head  with  oil,  but  she  not  anoint  :  but  she  hath  anointed  my 
hath  anointed  my  head  with  ointment,  feet  with  ointment.  Wherefore  I  say 
Therefore  I  say  unto  thee  :  Many  sins  unto  thee  :  many  sins  are  forgiven  her, 
are  forgiven  her,  for  she  hath  loved  for  she  loved  much.  To  whom  less  is 
much.  But  unto  whom  less  is  forgiven,  forgiven,  the  same  doth  less  love.  And 
the  same  loveth  the  less.  he  said  unto  her  :  thy  sins  are  forgiven 

And  he  said  unto  her  :  Thy  sins  are  thee.  And  they  that  sat  at  meat  with 
forgiven  thee.  Then  they  that  sat  at  the  him,  began  to  say  within  themselves, 
table  with  him,  began  to  say  within  Who  is  this  which  forgiveth  sins  also? 
themselves  :  What  is  he  this,  that  forgiv-  And  he  said  to  the  woman  :  Thy  faith 
eth  sins  also  ?  But  he  said  unto  the  hath  saved  thee  :  Go  in  peace, 
woman  :  Thy  faith  hath  saved  thee,  Go 
thy  way  in  peace. 

BISHOPS'. 

woman  ?  I  entered  into  thine  house,  thou  gavest  me  no  water  for  my  feet :  but 
she  hath  washed  my  feet  with  tears,  and  wiped  them  with  the  hairs  of  her  head. 

45.  Thou  gavest  me  no  kiss  ;  but  this  woman,  since  the  time  I  came  in,  hath 
not  ceased  to  kiss  my  feet. 

46.  Mine  head  with  oil  thou  didst  not  anoint  ;  but  this  woman  hath  anointed 
my  feet  with  ointment. 

47.  Wherefore    I   say  unto  thee,  many   sins  are  forgiven  her,  for  she  loved 
much  ;  to  whom  little  is  forgiven,  the  same  loveth  little. 

48.  And  he  said  unto  her,  thy  sins  are  forgiven  thee. 

49.  And  they  that  sat  at  meat  with  him,  began  to  say  within  themselves,  who 
is  this  that  forgiveth  sins  also  ? 

50.  And  he  said  to  the  woman  :  Thy  faith  hath  saved  thee  ;  go  in  peace. 


2/6  APPENDIX    I.    (CONTINUED.) 

TYNDALE.  COVERDALE. 

Matt,  xviii.  15.  Moreover  if  thy  Matt,  xviii.  15.  If  thy  brother  trespass 
brother  trespnss  against  thee,  go  and  tell  against  thee,  go  and  tell  him  his  fault 
him  his  fault  between  him  and  thee  between  thee  and  him  alone.  If  he  hear 
alone.  If  he  hear  thee,  thou  hast  won  thee,  thou  hast  won  thy  brother  But  if 
thy  brother  ;  but  if  he  hear  thee  not,  he  hear  thee  not,  then  take  yet  with  thee 
then  take  with  thee  one  or  two,  that  in  one  or  two,  that  in  the  mouth  of  two  or 
the  mouth  of  two  or  three  witnesses,  all  three  witnesses,  every  matter  may  be 
sayings  may  stand.  If  he  hear  not  stablished.  If  he  hear  not  them,  tell 
them,  tell  it  unto  the  congregation  ;  if  it  unto  the  congregation.  If  he  hear  not 
he  hear  not  the  congregation,  take  him  the  congregation,  hold  him  as  an  heath- 
as  an  heathen  man  and  as  a  publican.        en  and  publican. 

Acts  ii.  47.  And  the  Lord  added  to  Acts  ii  47.  And  the  Lord  added  to 
the  congregation  daily  them  that  should  the  congregation  daily  such  as  should  be 
be  saved.  saved. 

Acts  viii.  1.  At  that  time  was  there  Acts  viii.  1.  At  the  same  time,  there 
a  great  persecution  against  the  congre-  was  a  great  persecution  over  the  congre- 
gation which  was  at  Jerusalem.  gation  at  Jerusalem. 

Acts  xi.  22.  Tidings  of  this  came  Acts  xi.  22.  This  tidings  of  them 
unto  the  ears  of  the  congregation  which  came  to  the  ears  of  the  congregation  at 
was  in  Jerusalem.  26.  It  chanced  that  Jerusalem.  26.  It  chanced  that  a  whole 
a  whole  year  they  had  their  conversation  year  they  were  there  conversant  together 
with  the  congregation  there.  in  the  congregation. 

Acts  xii.  1.  In  that  time  Herod  the  Acts  xii.  1.  At  the  same  time  laid 
King  laid  hands  on  certain  of  the  con-  King  Herod  hands  upon  certain  of  the 
gregation  to  vex  them.  5.  But  prayer  congregation  to  vex  them.  5.  But  prayer 
was  made  without  ceasing  of  the  congre-  was  made  without  ceasing  of  the  congre- 
gation unto  God  for  him.  gation,  unto  God  for  him. 

Acts  xiii.  1.  There  were  at  Antioch  Acts  xiii.  1.  There  were  at  Antioch 
in  the  congregation  prophets  and  doc-  in  the  congregation,  prophets  and 
tors.  teachers. 

Acts  xiv.  23.  And  when  they  had  Acts  xiv.  23.  And  when  they  had 
ordained  them  seniors*  by  election  in  ordained  them  elders  by  election,  through 
every  congregation.  all  the  congregations. 

1  Cor.  iv.  17.     Even  as  I  teach  every 
where,  in  all  congregations.  1  Cor.  iv.  17.     Even  as  I  teach  every 

Heb.  xii.  22.  But  ye  are  come  unto  where,  in  all  congregations, 
the  mount  Sion,  and  to  the  city  of  the  Heb.  xii.  22.  But  ye  are  come  to  the 
living  God.  the  celestial  Jerusalem,  and  mount  Sion,  and  to  the  city  of  the  living 
to  an  innumerable  sight  of  angels,  and  God,  to  the  celestial  Jerusalem,  and  to 
unto  the  congregation  of  the  first  born  the  multitude  of  many  thousand  angels, 
sons.  and  unto   the  congregation  of  the   first 

*  Afterwards,  elders.  born. 

GENEVAN. 

Matt,  xviii.  15.  Moreover,  if  thy  brother  trespass  against  thee,  go  and  tell  him 
his  fault  between  him  and  thee  alone.  If  he  hear  thee,  thou  hast  won  thy 
brother. 

16.  But  if  he  hear  thee  not,  then  take  yet  with  thee  one  or  two  ;  that  by  the 
mouth  of  two  or  three  witnesses,  ail  the  matter  may  be  confirmed. 

17.  And  if  he  will  not  vouchsafe  to  hear  them,  tell  it  unto  the  congregation. 
And  if  he  refuse  to  hear  the  congregation,  let  him  be  unto  thee  as  an  heathen 
man,  and  as  a  publican. 

Acts  ii.  47.     And  the  Lord  added  to  the  church  daily  such  as  should  be  saved. 

Acts  viii.  1.  And  at  that  time,  there  was  a  great  persecution  against  the  congre- 
gation which  was  at  Jerusalem. 

Acts  xi.  22.  Tidings  of  these  things  came  unto  the  ears  of  the  congregation 
which  was  in  Jerusalem. 

26.  And  it  chanced  that  a  whole  year  they  had  their  conversation  with  the 
church  there. 


APPENDIX   I.    (CONTINUED.)  277 

CRANMER.  BISHOPS'. 

Matt,  xviii.  15.  Moreover,  if  thy  brother  Matt,  xviii.  15.  Moreover,  if  thy 
trespass  against  thee,  go  and  tell  him  brother  shall  trespass  against  thee,  go 
his  fault  between  him  and  thee  alone,  and  tell  him  his  fault  between  thee  and 
If  he  hear  thee  thou  hast  won  thy  him  alone  ;  if  he  shall  hear  thee,  thou 
brother.  But  if  he  hear  thee  not,  then  hast  won  thy  brother, 
take  yet  with  thee  one  or  two,  that  in  the  16.  But  if  he  will  not  hear  thee,  then 
mouth  of  two  or  three  witnesses,  every  take  yet  with  thee  one  or  two  ;  that  in 
matter  may  be  stablished.  If  he  hear  the  mouth  of  two  or  three  witnesses, 
not  them,  tell  it  unto  the  congregation,  every  word  may  be  stablished. 
If  he  hear  not  the  congregation,  let  him  17.  If  he  will  not  hear  them,  tell  it 
be  to  thee  as  an  heathen  man  and  as  unto  the  church  :  if  he  will  not  hear  the 
a  publican.  church,  let  him  be  unto  thee  as  an  heath- 

en man  and  a  publican. 

Acts  ii.  47.  And  the  Lord  added  to  Acts  ii.  47.  And  the  Lord  added  to 
the  congregation  daily  such  as  should  the  church  daily  such  as  should  be  saved, 
be  saved.  Acts  viii.  1.     And    at  that  time  there 

Acts  viii.  1.     And  at  that  time,  there  was    a    great    persecution    against    the 
was  a  great  persecution  against  the  con-  church  which  was  at  Jerusalem, 
gregation  which  was  at  Jerusalem.  Acts  xi.   22.     Then    tidings    of    these 

Acts  xi.  22.  Tidings  of  these  things  things  came  unto  the  ears  of  the  church 
came  unto  the  ears  of  the  congregation  which  was  in  Jerusalem.  26.  And  it 
which  was  in  Jerusalem.  26.  And  it  came  to  pass  that  a  whole  year  they  had 
chanced  that  a  whole  year  they  had  their  their  conversation  with  the  church  there, 
conversation  with  the  congregation  Acts  xii.  1.  At  the  same  time  Herod 
there.  the  King  stretched  forth  his  hands  to  vex 

Acts  xii.  1.  At  the  same  time  Herod  certain  of  the  church.  5.  But  prayer 
the  King  stretched  forth  his  hands  to  was  made  without  ceasing  of  the  church 
vex  certain  of  the  congregation.     5.   But  unto  God  for  him. 

prayer  was  made  without  ceasing  of  the       Acts  xiii.  1.     There   was  also  in   the 
congregation  unto  God  for  him.  church  that  was  at  Antioch,  certain  pro- 

Acts  xiii.  1.     There  were  in  the  con-  phets  and  teachers, 
gregation    that    is   at   Antioch,    certain       Acts   xiv.    23.      And  when    they  had 
prophets  and  teachers.  ordained    them    elders   by    election    in 

Acts   xiv.   23.       And   when    they  had  every  church, 
ordained  them  elders  by  election  in  every       1  Cor.  iv.  17.    As  I  teach  every  where 
congregation.  in  all  churches. 

1  Cor.  iv.  17.  Even  as  I  teach  every  Heb.  xii.  22.  But  ye  are  come  unto 
where,  in  all  congregations.  the  mount  Sion,  and  to  the  city  of  the 

Heb.  xii.  22.     But  ye  are  come  unto  living  God,  the  celestial  Jerusalem,  and 
the  mount  Sion,  and  to  the  city  of  the  to  an  innumerable  company  of  angels, 
living  God,  the  celestial  Jerusalem  ;  and       23.     And  unto  the  congregation  of  the 
to  an  innumerable  sight  of  angels    and  first  born, 
unto  the  congregation  of  the  first  born 
sons, 

GENEVAN. 

Acts  xii.  1.  In  that  time,  Herod  the  king  stretched  forth  his  hands  to  vex  cer-. 
tain  of  the  congregation. 

5.   But  prayer  was  made  without  ceasing  of  the  church  unto  God  for  him. 

Acts  xiii.  1.  There  were  in  the  congregation  that  was  at  Antioch,  certain  pro- 
phets and  teachers. 

Acts  xiv.  23.  And  when  they  had  ordained  them  elders  by  election  in  every 
church. 

1  Cor.  iv.  17.     Even  as  I  teach  every  where  in  all  congregations. 

Heb.  xii.  22.  But  ye  are  come  unto  the  mount  Sion,  and  to  the  city  of  the 
living  God,  the  celestial  Jerusalem  ;  and  to  the  company  of  innumerable  angels, 

23.  And  to  the  congregation  of  the  first  born  sons. 


278  APPENDIX    I.    (CONTINUED.) 

PART    II. 

PSALxM    XIX. 

MATTHEWS.  BISHOPS'. 

The  very  heauens  declare  the  glory  of  1.  The  heauens  declare  the  glorie  of 
God  and  the  very  firmament  sheweth  his  God  :  and  the  firmament  shevveth  his 
handy  worcke.  handie  woorke. 

Onedayetellethanother.andonenyght       2.  A    day  occasioneth    talke    thereof 
certifyeth    another.     There    is    neytner  vnto  a  day  :  &  a  nyght  teacheth  knowl- 
speach    ncr   language,    but  their  voices  edge  vnto  a  nyght. 
are  hard  among  them.*  3.    No  language,  no  woordes,  no  voyce 

Their  sounde  is  gone  oute  into  all  of  theyrs  is  Ue^rde  :  yet  theyre  sounde* 
landes,  and  their  wordes  into  the  endes  of  goeth  into  al  landes,  and  theyr  wootdes 
the  wo'rlde.  In  them  hath  he  setle  a  into  the  endes  of  the  worlde. 
tabernacle  for  the  Sunne,  whych  com-  4.  In  them  he  hath  sette  a  tabernacle 
meth  forthe  as  a  brydegrome  out  of  his  for  the  sunne,  whych  commeth  foorth  as 
chamber,  and  reioyceth  as  a  giaunt  to  a  brydegrome  out  cf  his  chamber,  and 
runne  his  course.  reioyceth  as  a  giant  to  runne  his  course. 

It  goeth  forth  from  the  one  ende  of  the  5.  His  setting  foorth  is  from  the 
heauen, and  runneth  aboute  vnto  the  same  vtmost  part  of  heauen,  &  his  circuite 
endeagayne.and  there  maye  no  man  hyde  vnto  the  vtmost  part  therof  :  and  there 
hymselfe  from  the  heate  therof.  The  is  nothing  hid  from  his  heate. 
lawe  of  the  Lorde  is  a  perfecte  lawe  it  6.  The  law  of  God  is  perfect,  conuert- 
quickeneth  the  soule.  ing  the  soulc  :  the  testimonie  of  God  is 

The  testimonye  of  the  Lorde  is  true,  sure,  and  geueth  wysdome  vnto  the  sim- 
arrd  geueth  wisdome  euen  vnto  babes.        pie. 

The  statutes  of  the  Lord  are  ryght,  7.  The  statutes  of  god  are  ryght,  and 
and  reioyse  the  hert  :  the  commaunde-  reioyce  the  hart  :  the  commaundement  of 
mentof  the  lord  is  pure,  and  geueth  lyght  god  is  pure, and  geueth  light  vnto  the  eyes, 
vnto  the  eyes.  8.   The  feare  of  god  is  sincere,  and  en- 

The  feare  of  the  Lorde  is  cleane,  and  dureth  for  euer  :  the  iudgementes  of  god 
endureth  for  euer  :  the  iudgementes  of  are  trueth.  they  be  iust  in  al  pointes. 
the  Lord  are  true  and  ryghtuous  alto-  9.  They  are  more  to  be  desired  then 
gether.  More  pleasaunt  are  they  then  golde,  yea  then  muche  fine  golde  :  they 
golde,  yea  then  much  fyne  golde  :  sweter  are  also  svvceler  then  hony,  and  the  hony 
then  hony  and  the  hony  combe.     These   combe. 

thy  seruaunt   kepeth,  &  for  kepynge  of        10.   Moreover,  by  them  thy  seruant  is 
them  there  is  great  reward.  wel  aduertised  :  and  in  kcping  of  them 

*  Mart,  or  rather,  there  is  no  ,oyce  amonge   there  is  a  great   "warde. 
them.  *  v.  3,  marg.  rule,  or  line. 

GENEVAN. 

1.  The  heauens  declare  the  glorie  of  God,  &  the  firmament  sheweth  the  worke 
of  his  hands. 

2.  Day  vnto  day  vttereth  the  same,  and  night  vnto  night  teacheth  knowledge, 
v  [There  is]  no  speach  nor  language,  [where]  their  voyce  is  not  heard. 

4.  Their  line  is  gone  forth  through  all  the  earth,  and  their  wordes  into  the  endes 
of  the  world  :   in  them  hath  he  set  a  Tabernacle  for  the  sunne. 

5.  Which  commeth  foorth  as  a  bridegrome  out  of  his  chamber,*  [and]  reioyceth 
like  a  mightie  man  to  runne  [his]  race. 

6.  His  going  out  [is]  from  the  ende  of  the  heauen,  and  his  compasse  [is]  vnto 
the  endes  of  the  same,  and  none  is  hid  from  the  heate  thereof. 

7.  The  Lawe  of  the  Lorde  is  perfit,  conuerting  the  soule  :  the  testimonie  of  the 
Lorde  is  sure,  and  giueth  wisedovn  vnto  the  simple. 

8.  The  statutes  of  the  Lorde  [are]  right  and  reioyce  the  heart :  the  commande- 
ment  of  the  Lord  [is]  pure,  and  giueth  light  vnto  the  eyes. 

9.  The  feare  of  the  Lorde  [is]  cleane,  and  indureth  for  euer  :  the  iudgements  of 
the  Lorde  [are]  trueth  :   they  are  righteous  all  together. 

10.  And  more  to  be  desired  then  golde,  yea,  then  much  fine  golde  :  sweeter 
also  then  honie  and  the  honie  combe. 

11.  Moreouer  by  them  [is]  thy  seruant  made  circumspect,  [and]  in  keeping  of 
them  there  [is]  great  reward. 

*  v.  5,  marg.  or  vuile. 


APPENDIX    I.    (CONTINUED.)  279 

MATTHEW'S.  BISHOPS'. 

Who  can   tell   how  oft  he   offendeth  :  II.   Who  can  knovve  his  owne  errours: 

Oh    dense    thou   me    from    my   secrete  Oh,  cleanse  thou   me   from   those   I   am 

fautes.      Kepe    thy   seruaunt   also    from  not  priuie  of. 

presumptuous  synnes,  lest  they  get  the  12.    Kepe  thy  seruant  also  from  pre- 

dominion  ouer  me  :  so  shall  I  be  vnde  sumptuous  (sinnes)  let  them  not  raigne 

fyled   and  innocent  from  the  greate  of-  ouer  me  :  so  I   shalbe  perfect  &  voyde 

fence.  from  al  heynous  offence. 

Yea  the  wbrds  of  my  mouth  and  the  13.   Let  the  woordes  of  my  mouth  and 

meditacion  of  my  herte  shalbe  accept-  the  meditacion  of  my  hart  be  accepta- 

able  vnto   the,  O   Lorde,  my  helper  and  ble    in    thy  sight,  O    God,  my  strength 

my  redemer.  and  my  redeemer. 

GENEVAN. 

12.  Who  can  vnderstand  [his]  faults  ;  dense  me  from  secrete  [faultes]. 

13.  Keepe  thy  seruant  also  from  presumptuous  sinnes  :  let  them   not  reigne 
ouer  me  :  so  shall  I  bee  vpright.  &  made  cleane  from  much  wickednesse. 

14.  Let  the  wordes  of  my  mouth,  and  the  meditation  of  mine  heart  be  accept- 
able in  thy  sight,  O  Lord,  my  strength,  &  my  redeemer. 


28o     •  APPENDIX    I.    (CONTINUED). 

DANIEL  vii.  9. 

Matthew's  :  I  loked  tyl  the  seates  were  prepared  and  tyll  the  olde  aged  sat 
hym  doune. 

Covkrdale  and  Cranmer  the  same. 

Genevan  :  I  beheld,  till  the  thrones  were  set  vp,  &  the  Ancient  of  dayes  did 
sit. 

Bishops',  same  as  Genevan. 

THE    LORD'S    PRAYER. 
IN  MATTHEW  vi. 

TYNDALE.  COVERDALE. 

O  oure  father  which  arte  in  heven,  O  oure  father  which  art  in  heauen. 
halowed  be  thy  name.  Let  thy  king-  halowed  be  thy  name.  Thy  kyngdome 
dom  come.  Thy  wyll  be  fufilled  as  well  come.  Thy  wyll  be  fulfilled  vpon  earth 
in  erth,  as  hit  ys  in  heven.  Geve  vs  this  as  it  is  in  heauen.  Geue  us  this  daye 
daye  oure  dayly  breade.  And  forgeve  oure  dayly  bred.  And  forgeue  us  oure 
vs  oure  treaspases,  even  as  we  forgeve  dett^s,  as  we  also  forgeve  oure  detters. 
them  which  treaspas  vs.  Leede  vs  not  And  lede  vs  not  in  to  temptacion  :  but 
into  temptacion,  but  delyvre  vs  from  delyuer  vs  from  euell.  For  thyne  is  the 
yvell,  Amen.  kyngdome,  and  the  power,  and  the  glorye 

for  euer.     Amen. 

BISHOPS'. 
q.   O  our  father  which  art  in  heauen,  halowed  be  thy  name. 

10.  Let  thy  kyngdome  comme.  Thy  wyl  be  donne,  as  wel  in  earth,  as  it  is  in 
heauen. 

11.  Geue  vs  this  day  our  dayly  bread. 

12.  And  forgeue  vs  our  dettes,  as  we  forgeue  our  detters. 

13.  And  leade  vs  not  into  temptation,  but  delyuer  vs  trom  euyl  :  for  thyne  is 
the  kyngdome,  and  the  power,  and  the  glorie,  for  euer.     Amen, 

In  Luke  xi.  2-4. 
TYNDALE.  MATTHEW'S.     (N.  T.  Tyndale's.) 

Oure  father  which  arte  in  heven,  hal-  t  ?  oure  father  whiche  arte  in  heauen. 
owed  be  thy  name.  Lett  thy  kyngdome  ha  owed  be  thy  name.  Thy  kyngedome 
come.  Thy  will  be  fulfillet  even  in  erth  come.  They  will  be  fulfylled  euen  in 
as  it  is  in  heven.  Oure  davly  breed  geve  earthe  as  it  is  in  heauen.  Geue  vs  our 
vs  this  day.  And  forgeve  vs  oure  da.vlye  breade  euermore.  And  forgeue 
synnes  :  for  even  we  forgeve  every  man  vs  oure  synnes  :  for  euen  we  forgeue 
that  traspaseth  vs,  and  ledde  vs  not  into  euery  man  that  trespasseth  vs.  And 
temptacion,  Butt  deliver  vs  from  evyll.  ledde  vs  not  into  temptacyon.  But 
Amen  dehuer  vs  from  euyll. 

COVERDALE.  CRANMER. 

O  oure  father  which  art  in  heauen,  O  our  father  whiche  art  in  heauen 
halowed  be  thy  name.  Thy  kyngdome  halowed  by  thy  name.  Thy  kyngdome 
come.  Thy  wil  be  fulfilled  vpon  earth  come.  Thy  will  bee  fulfilled,  "euen  in 
as  it  is  in  heauen.  Geue  vs  this  daye  earth  also  as  it  is  in  heauen.  Our  dayly 
oure  daylie  bred.  And  forgeue  vs  oure  breade  geue  vs  this  day,  and  forgeue  vs 
synnes,  for  we  also  forgeue  all  them  oure  synnes:  For  euen  we  forgeue  euery 
that  are  detters  vnto  vs.  And  lede  vs  manne  that  trespaseth  vs.  And  leade 
not  in  to  temptacion,  but  delyuer  vs  from  vs  not  into  temptacion.  But  delyuer  vs 
euell.  from  euyll. 

BISHOPS'. 

2.  O  our  father  whiche  art  in  heauen,  halowed  be  thy  name.  Thy  kyngdome 
comme.     Thy  wyl  be  donne,  euen  in  earth  also  as  it  is  in  heauen. 

3.  Our  dayly  bread  geue  vs  this  day. 

4.  And  forgeue  vs  our  sinnes  :  for  euen  we  forgeue  euery  man  that  trespasseth 
vs.     And  lead  vs  not  into  temptation,  but  deliuer  vs  from  the  euyl. 


APPENDIX    I.    (CONTINUED.)  28 1 

i  CORINTHIANS   xiii.  1-3. 

TYNDALE.  CRANMER. 

Though  I  speake  with  the  tonges  of  men  Though  I  spake  with  the  tongues  of  men 
and  angels,  and  yet  had  no  love,  I  were  and  of  angels,  and  haue  no  loue,  I  am 
even  as  soundynge  brasse  :  and  as  a  euen  as  soundyng  brasse  :  or  as  a  tink- 
tynklynge  Cynball,  and  though  I  coulde  linge  cimbal.  And  thoughe  I  couldc 
prophesy,  and  vnderstode  all  secretes,and  prophecye  and  vnderstode  all  secretes 
all  knowledge  :  yee,  if  I  had  all  fayth  so  &  all  knoweledge  ;  yea,  yf  I  haue  all 
that  I  coulde  move  mountayns  oute  of  faythe,  so  that  I  can  moue  mountaynes 
there  places,  and  yet  had  no  love,  I  were  oute  of  theyr  places, and  yet  haue  no  loue, 
nothynge.  And  though  I  bestowed  all  I  am  nothyng.  And  though  I  bestow 
my  gooddes  to  fede  the  poore,  and  al  my  goodes  to  fede  the  poore,  and 
though  I  gave  my  body  even  that  I  though  I  geue  my  body  euen  that  1 
burned,  &  yet  have  no  love,  it  profeteth  burned,  and  yet  haue  no  loue,  itprofyteth 
me  nothynge.  me  nothyng. 

GENEVAN.  BISHOPS'. 

1.  Though  I  speake  with  the  tongues  of  I.  Though  I  speake  with  the  tongues  of 
men  and  Angels,  and  haue  not  loue,  I  am  menne  and  of  Angels,  and  haue  not  chari- 
(as)  sounding  brasse,  or  a  tinkling  cym-  tie,  I  am  [as]  sounding  brasse,  or  [as]  a 
ball.  tincklyng  Cymbale. 

2.  And  though  I  had  the  (gift)  of  pro-  2.  And  though  I  haue  prophecie.  and 
phecie,  and  knewe  all  secretes  and  all  vnderstande  al  secretes,  and  al  know- 
knowledge,  yea,  if  I  had  all  fayth,  so  that  ledge  :  yea,  yf  I  haue  al  fayth,  so  that  I 
I  could  remoue  mountaines  and  had  not  can  remooue  mountaynes,  and  haue  not 
loue,  I  were  nothing.  charilie,  I  am  nothing. 

3.  And  though  I  feede  the  poore  with  3.  And  though  I  bestowe  al  my  goodes 
all  my  goods,  and  though  I  giue  my  body,  to  feede  the  poore,  and  though  I  geue  my 
that  I  be  burned,  &  have  not  loue,  it  body  that  I  should  be  burned,  and  haue 
profiteth  me  nothing.  not  charitie,  it  profueth  me  nothing. 


282  APPENDIX    II. -III. 

APPENDIX     II. 

THE    IMMACULATE   CONCEPTION. 

As  this  doctrine  is  of  late  claimed  to  have  been  the  universal  sense  of  the  Holy 
Catholic  Church  in  all  ages,  though  not  recognized  by  formal  act,*  it  may  be 
interesting  to  hear  Sir  Thomas  More's  testimony  on  the  point.  It  is  contained 
in  a  letter  from  Margaret  Roper  to  her  sister-in-law,  detailing  an  interview  with 
her  father  in  the  Tower     She  thus  gives  his  words  : 

"  For  an  ensample  of  some  such  manner  of  things,  I  have  I  trow  before  this 
time  told  you,  that  whether  our  blessed  lady  were  conceived  in  original  sin  or 
not,  was  sometime  in  great  question  among  the  great  learned  men  of  Christen- 
dom. And  whether  it  be  yet  decided  and  determined  by  any  general  council,  I 
remember  not.  But  this  I  remember  well,  that  notwithstanding  that  the  feast  of 
her  conception  was  then  celebrated  in  the  church  (at  the  least  wise,  in  divers  pro- 
vinces), yet  was  holy  St.  Bernard,  which,  as  his  manifold  books  in  the  praise  and 
laud  of  our  lady  do  declare,  was  of  as  devout  affection  toward  all  things  sounding 
toward  her  commendation  that  he  thought  might  well  be  verified  or  suffered,  as 
any  man  living  ;  yet,  I  say,  was  that  holy  devout  man  against  that  part  of  her 
praise,  as  appeareth  well  by  an  epistle  of  his,  wherein  he  right  sore  and  with 
great  reason  argueth  there  against,  and  approveth  not  the  institution  of  that  feast 
neither.  Nor  was  he  not  of  this  mind  alone,  but  many  other  well  learned  men 
with  him,  and  right  holy  men  too.  Now  there  was  on  the  other  side,  the  blessed 
holy  bishop  St.  Anselm,  and  he  not  alone  neither,  but  many  very  well  learned 
and  very  virtuous  also  with  him." — More's  English  Works,  p.  1439. 


APPENDIX     III. 

THE    SOLDIER'S    BIBLE. 

An  account  of  this  Bible,  prepared  in  1643  by  Cromwell's  order  for  the  use  of 
his  army,  has  been  published  by  the  late  George  Livermore,  Esq.,  Cambridge, 
Mass.,  from  which  the  following  particulars  are  quoted: 

"  The  selections  from  Scripture  are  divided  into  eighteen  chapters,  each  with 
an  appropriate  heading  to  indicate  the  class  of  Scriptures  contained  therein.  A 
few  examples  of  these  headings  or  titles,  will  sufficiently  show  their  general  char- 
acter. 

1.  A  Souldier  must  not  doe  wickedly. 

2.  A  Souldier  must  be  valiant  for  God's  cause. 

3.  A  Souldier  must  pray  before  he  go  to  fight." 

Mr.  Livermore  refers  to  the  remarkable  fact,  "  that  the  success  of  Cromwell's 
army  commenced  immediately  on  the  publication  of  The  Souldier's  Pocket  Bible; 
and  they  never  after  lost  a  battle  !" 

*  On  December  8th,  1854,  it  was  defined  by  Pope  Pius  IX.  as  an  article  of  faith  of  the  Roman 
Catholic   Church. 


APPENDIX   III. 


283 


•3 
■3 
•3 


THE 

SOULDIERS 

Pocket  Bible: 


aS  Containing:  the  most  (if  not  all)  those  «« 
^  places  contained  in  holy  Scripture,  j? 
°§      which  doe  shew  thequalificationsof  his  fcs 

eg  U  £9 

eg      inner  man,  that  is  a  fit  Souldier  to  fight,  ge 

®|      the  Lords  Battels,  both  before  he  fight,  S 

"3      in  the  fight,  and  after  the  fight ;  S9 

®g  £* 

^5 i  Which  Scriptures    are    reduced    to   se- S 

®§  verail  heads,  and  fitly  applved  to  the  S® 
eg  _  •  go 

eg      Souldiersseveralloccasions.andsomay  gs 

supply  the  want  of  the  whole  Bible,  £2 

which  a  Souldier  cannot  conveniently  S» 

cany  about  him  :  go 

go 
may    bee    also    usefiill    for    any  |» 


*3 


sS  And 


■S 


Christian  to  meditate  upon,  now  in 
this  miserable  time  of  Warre. 


■3 
«3 


Imprimatur,         Edm.  Calami/. 


& 
ge 

..  This  Book  of  the.  Law-  shall  not  departout  gj 
of  thy  mouth, but  thou  shalt  meditate  therein  day  g9 
and  night,  that  thou  maistobserveto  doe  accord-  g° 
ingr  to  all  that  is  written  therein,  for  then  thou  go 
shalt  make  thy  way  prosperous,  and  have  good  Ss 
successe.  ge 
go 

«g  Printed  at  London  by  Cr.  B.  and  i?.  W.  for  go 
%  G.C.I  643.  I 


"8 

t»3 


284  APPENDIX   III. 

Only  two  copies  of  this  curious  work  are  now  known  to  be  in  existence,  one  of 
which,  at  the  time  this  volume  was  written,  was  in  the  possession  of  Mr.  Livermor 
The  other  had  but  recently  come  to  light  in  England.  In  a  letter  written  by  Mr. 
Livermore,  he  says  on  this  point  :  "  It  is  quite  remarkable,  that  the  question  con- 
cerning the  '  Souldier's  Bible'  should  be  answered  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic. 
English  Bibliographers  have  never  been  able,  till  the  past  year,  to  decide  what 
tdition  of  the  Bible  was  furnished  to  Cromwell's  army  ;  and  the  existence  of 
*  The  Souldier's  Bible'  was  unknown,  until  I  had  sent  a  description  of  it  to  Rev. 
Dr.  Cotton,  George  Offor,  Esq.,  Henry  Stevens,  Esq.,  an<tother  eminent  English 
Bibliographers.  This  little  work  was  entirely  unknown  to  them.  After  a  long 
and  diligent  search  in  various  public  and  private  libraries,  only  one  other  copy 
has  been  found,  and  that  is  in  the  British  Museum." 

On  another  point  of    interest,  in  reply  to  an   inquiry  of  the  writer,  he  says  : 
"  The  selections  from  Scripture  are,  in  ahv&st  every  instance,  taken  from  the  G< 
van  Version  ;  but  in  some  cases,  a  very  few,  King  James'  Version  has  been  use 
In  a  few  cases,  the    phraseology  varies  slightly  from  all  the   English  Versions 
which  I  have  examined." 

This  is  an  interesting  corroborative  testimony  to  the  preference  of  our  Puritan 
forefathers  for  the  Genevan  Version  (see  p.  204),  so  late  as  1643. 

Note.— During  the  late  Civil  War,  a  Special  Pocket  Bible  was  presented  and  widely  distributed 
amon;  the  Union  armies,  containing  the  same  passages  as  the  above,  but  in  the  language  of  tbe 
common  version. 


BS455  .C743  1881 

The  popular  history  of  the  translation 

Princeton  Theological  Seminary-Speer  Library 


1    1012  00011   0322 


DATE  DUE 


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GAYLORD 


#3523PI        Printed  in  USA 


